Women’s Health Coverage Since the ACA: Improvements for Most, But Insurer Exclusions Put Many at Risk

By Dania Palanker (National Women’s Law Center) and Karen Davenport
The Commonwealth Fund, August 2, 2016

Issue:  Since enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), many more women have health insurance than before the law, in part because it prohibits insurer practices that discriminate against women. However, gaps in women’s health coverage persist. Insurers often exclude health services that women are likely to need, leaving women vulnerable to higher costs and denied claims that threaten their economic security and physical health.

Goal:  To uncover the types and incidence of insurer exclusions that may disproportionately affect women’s coverage.

Method:  The authors examined qualified health plans from 109 insurers across 16 states for 2014, 2015, or both years.

Key findings and conclusions:  Six types of services are frequently excluded from insurance coverage: treatment of conditions resulting from noncovered services, maintenance therapy, genetic testing, fetal reduction surgery, treatment of self-inflicted conditions, and preventive services not covered by law. Policy change recommendations include prohibiting variations within states’ “essential health benefits” benchmark plans and requiring transparency and simplified language in plan documents.

Problems from lack of transparency

There is little transparency in plan documents regarding health insurance exclusions. As a result, women may unwittingly enroll in plans containing exclusions that impact their coverage, and remain unaware of the exclusions until they seek services or have a claim denied. The short overview of coverage provided for each plan on the marketplace—called the “Summary of Benefits and Coverage”—includes space for information on exclusions. However, only 13 exclusions are required to be listed, and none of the exclusions described in this brief are in that group. Identifying all exclusions requires reading the underlying plan document, such as the evidence of coverage; yet some plan documents are over 100 pages long and exclusions appear in various sections. Terminology also varies among insurers; for example, some plans exclude “maintenance therapy” and others exclude “maintenance care.” In addition, some exclusions appear among only a small number of insurers, so women cannot know all the exclusions to look for in their plans. For example, six insurers exclude services resulting from an enrollee’s failure to comply with or accept recommended treatment, which is problematic for women who are less likely than men to adhere to prescription protocols. These factors make it difficult for women to identify and compare exclusions across plans.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2016/aug/womens-health-coverage-since-aca

The Affordable Care Act included provisions to prohibit discrimination against women in health insurance plans. However it is in the DNA of private insurers to work around regulations in order to serve their own interests, and this is what they have done regarding discriminatory policies against women, as this study shows.

We put our health care financing in charge of individuals who are running a private business. It would be unrealistic for us to expect them to do anything other than to optimize the business opportunity for themselves.

Had we established our own public program – a single payer national health program – our public employees would have been dedicated to service – trying to make the program work in getting us the health care that we need. Further, they would have done it without all of the expense and administrative complexity that characterizes our dysfunctional multi-payer system.

Better service for less money? We can still do it.

High Out-of-Pocket Medical Spending among the Poor and Elderly in Nine Developed Countries

By Katherine Baird
HSR, August 2016

Objective:  The design of health insurance, and the role out-of-pocket (OOP) payments play in it, is a key policy issue as rising health costs have encouraged greater cost-sharing measures. This paper compares the percentage of Americans spending large amounts OOP to meet their health needs with percentages in eight other developed countries. By disaggregating by age and income, the paper focuses on the poor and elderly populations within each.

Principal Findings:  The United States is not alone in exposing large numbers of citizens to high OOP expenses. In six of the other eight countries, one-quarter or more of low-income citizens devoted at least 5 percent of their income to OOP expenses, and in all but two countries, more than 1 in 10 elderly citizens had high medical expenses.

Conclusions:  For some populations in the sample nations, health insurance does not provide adequate financial protection and likely contributes to inequities in health care delivery and outcomes.

From the Results

In five nations, more than ten percent of individuals lived in households with high medical spending (United States, Poland, Israel, Switzerland, and Russia), and only in France (2.9 percent) did less than five percent of the population incur high OOP expenses.

From the Discussion

This study provides some of the best comparative evidence to date of the variation within and between countries of the percentage of citizens exposed to high OOP medical expenses. The results foremost underscore the very high financial burden that using health care places on many Americans.

But unlike other studies, I also find that high spending among poor and elderly Americans is equally common among their counterparts in many other countries. In seven of the nine countries (United States, Japan, Australia, Poland, Israel, Russia, and Switzerland), one-quarter or more of poor citizens devoted at least 5 percent of their income to OOP expenses; and in all nine countries, at least one-in-ten poor citizens did. Underinsurance rates among the elderly were somewhat lower than among the poor, yet the results show that one-in-four elderly citizens had high OOP expenditures in Switzerland, Russia, Poland, and Israel, while more than 15 percent did in Australia, Slovenia, Japan, and the United States.

From the Conclusions

The finding that the United States is not an outlier when it comes to the financial burden resulting from health care consumption in the sample of countries here highlights the fact that health insurance in many countries is commonly porous: high levels of OOP spending frequently occur in many countries despite universal insurance and the existence of policies that supposedly limit citizens’ financial exposure. The complicated nature of health care and health insurance benefits; the complex ways in which consumers respond to insurance benefits and their limits; and finally the often significant health risks not covered by insurance policies: all of these combine to leave large numbers of people across many countries devoting considerable resources to meeting their health care needs. Considering the evidence, then, solving the problem of the uninsured in the United States will most likely leave standing the separate one of underinsurance, unless policy seeks to tackle them both.

http://www.hsr.org/hsr/abstract.jsp?aid=54961134754

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Underinsurance – excessive out-of-pocket expenses for health care – results in financial hardship not only in the United States but also in other developed nations as well. Of the nine nations in this study, only France has insurance that is adequate to prevent financial burdens from out-of-pocket spending.

During reform processes, there is always a struggle on how to make insurance affordable. When the Affordable Care Act was crafted, to keep insurance premiums down it was decided that the benchmark plan would have an actuarial value of only 70 percent – the patient would be responsible for covering an average of 30 percent of the bill. It was obvious that this was too much of a burden for most individuals so they provided subsidies for out-of-pocket expenses for low-income individuals and placed a cap on out-of-pocket spending for covered benefits, but not for out-of-network care. This has left too many exposed to the very high deductibles that were required to keep the actuarial value down to 70 percent.

Yet France, with a per capita spending on health care near the OECD average, has shown us that patient cost sharing is not necessary to slow health care spending. Other studies have shown that, not only does cost sharing frequently create financial hardship, it also causes patients to forgo beneficial health care services. Both are bad, and they are avoidable.

The lesson is that getting everyone insured is not enough. We also need to eliminate underinsurance. We need to keep that in mind when we enact a single payer national health program – the improved in an Improved Medicare for All. There are too many in the policy community who accept, as blind faith, the necessity of high deductibles, so it will be a battle.

High Out-of-Pocket Medical Spending among the Poor and Elderly in Nine Developed Countries

By Katherine Baird
HSR, August 2016

Objective:  The design of health insurance, and the role out-of-pocket (OOP) payments play in it, is a key policy issue as rising health costs have encouraged greater cost-sharing measures. This paper compares the percentage of Americans spending large amounts OOP to meet their health needs with percentages in eight other developed countries. By disaggregating by age and income, the paper focuses on the poor and elderly populations within each.

Principal Findings:  The United States is not alone in exposing large numbers of citizens to high OOP expenses. In six of the other eight countries, one-quarter or more of low-income citizens devoted at least 5 percent of their income to OOP expenses, and in all but two countries, more than 1 in 10 elderly citizens had high medical expenses.

Conclusions:  For some populations in the sample nations, health insurance does not provide adequate financial protection and likely contributes to inequities in health care delivery and outcomes.

From the Results

In five nations, more than ten percent of individuals lived in households with high medical spending (United States, Poland, Israel, Switzerland, and Russia), and only in France (2.9 percent) did less than five percent of the population incur high OOP expenses.

From the Discussion

This study provides some of the best comparative evidence to date of the variation within and between countries of the percentage of citizens exposed to high OOP medical expenses. The results foremost underscore the very high financial burden that using health care places on many Americans.

But unlike other studies, I also find that high spending among poor and elderly Americans is equally common among their counterparts in many other countries. In seven of the nine countries (United States, Japan, Australia, Poland, Israel, Russia, and Switzerland), one-quarter or more of poor citizens devoted at least 5 percent of their income to OOP expenses; and in all nine countries, at least one-in-ten poor citizens did. Underinsurance rates among the elderly were somewhat lower than among the poor, yet the results show that one-in-four elderly citizens had high OOP expenditures in Switzerland, Russia, Poland, and Israel, while more than 15 percent did in Australia, Slovenia, Japan, and the United States.

From the Conclusions

The finding that the United States is not an outlier when it comes to the financial burden resulting from health care consumption in the sample of countries here highlights the fact that health insurance in many countries is commonly porous: high levels of OOP spending frequently occur in many countries despite universal insurance and the existence of policies that supposedly limit citizens’ financial exposure. The complicated nature of health care and health insurance benefits; the complex ways in which consumers respond to insurance benefits and their limits; and finally the often significant health risks not covered by insurance policies: all of these combine to leave large numbers of people across many countries devoting considerable resources to meeting their health care needs. Considering the evidence, then, solving the problem of the uninsured in the United States will most likely leave standing the separate one of underinsurance, unless policy seeks to tackle them both.

http://www.hsr.org/hsr/abstract.jsp?aid=54961134754

Underinsurance – excessive out-of-pocket expenses for health care – results in financial hardship not only in the United States but also in other developed nations as well. Of the nine nations in this study, only France has insurance that is adequate to prevent financial burdens from out-of-pocket spending.

During reform processes, there is always a struggle on how to make insurance affordable. When the Affordable Care Act was crafted, to keep insurance premiums down it was decided that the benchmark plan would have an actuarial value of only 70 percent – the patient would be responsible for covering an average of 30 percent of the bill. It was obvious that this was too much of a burden for most individuals so they provided subsidies for out-of-pocket expenses for low-income individuals and placed a cap on out-of-pocket spending for covered benefits, but not for out-of-network care. This has left too many exposed to the very high deductibles that were required to keep the actuarial value down to 70 percent.

Yet France, with a per capita spending on health care near the OECD average, has shown us that patient cost sharing is not necessary to slow health care spending. Other studies have shown that, not only does cost sharing frequently create financial hardship, it also causes patients to forgo beneficial health care services. Both are bad, and they are avoidable.

The lesson is that getting everyone insured is not enough. We also need to eliminate underinsurance. We need to keep that in mind when we enact a single payer national health program – the improved in an Improved Medicare for All. There are too many in the policy community who accept, as blind faith, the necessity of high deductibles, so it will be a battle.

NBER Working Paper 22440
Demand Heterogeneity in Insurance Markets: Implications for Equity and Efficiency

By Michael Geruso
National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2016

Abstract

In many markets insurers are barred from price discrimination on consumer characteristics like age, gender, and medical history. By themselves, such restrictions are known to exacerbate adverse selection problems. But the conventional wisdom — widely reflected in policy — is that with regulatory tools like premium subsidies, it is possible to address selection and induce efficient plan choices without price-discriminating. In this paper, I show why this conventional wisdom is wrong: As long as different sets of consumers (men and women, rich and poor, young and old) differ in their willingness-to-pay for insurance conditional on the losses they generate, then price discrimination across such groups is welfare-improving. The conventional wisdom is wrong because it implicitly assumes a one-to-one mapping from insurable risk to insurance valuation. I show that demand heterogeneity that breaks this one-to-one relationship is empirically relevant in a consumer health plan setting. Younger and older consumers and men and women reveal strikingly different demand for health insurance, conditional on their objective medical spending risk. This implies that these groups must face different prices in order to sort themselves efficiently across insurance contracts. The theoretical and empirical analysis highlights a previously unexplored, but fundamental, tradeoff between equity and efficiency that is unique to selection markets.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22440

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Individuals vary in their preference for insurance and willingness to pay for it. Michael Geruso explains that insurance pricing that takes preference into consideration is welfare-improving and thus efficient. Yet efforts to improve equity by compensating for price discrimination result in a tradeoff between equity and efficiency. Do we care?

What the majority of us want is a health care system that is accessible to all and funded equitably based on ability to pay. Using the analogy of the tradeoff between equity and efficiency, a system funded by progressive taxes would be highly equitable but might be terribly inefficient because wealthier individuals might not have a preference to pay higher taxes.

The efficiency that we actually want to see is greater value in our health care purchasing through eliminating much of the administrative waste that occurs in our dysfunctional financing system. The economist’s construct of efficiency as representing a measure of individual preference should be a negligible consideration when we have the ability to create a health care financing system that is equitable – fair – for everyone regardless of ideological preference.

NBER Working Paper 22440
Demand Heterogeneity in Insurance Markets: Implications for Equity and Efficiency

By Michael Geruso
National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2016

Abstract

In many markets insurers are barred from price discrimination on consumer characteristics like age, gender, and medical history. By themselves, such restrictions are known to exacerbate adverse selection problems. But the conventional wisdom — widely reflected in policy — is that with regulatory tools like premium subsidies, it is possible to address selection and induce efficient plan choices without price-discriminating. In this paper, I show why this conventional wisdom is wrong: As long as different sets of consumers (men and women, rich and poor, young and old) differ in their willingness-to-pay for insurance conditional on the losses they generate, then price discrimination across such groups is welfare-improving. The conventional wisdom is wrong because it implicitly assumes a one-to-one mapping from insurable risk to insurance valuation. I show that demand heterogeneity that breaks this one-to-one relationship is empirically relevant in a consumer health plan setting. Younger and older consumers and men and women reveal strikingly different demand for health insurance, conditional on their objective medical spending risk. This implies that these groups must face different prices in order to sort themselves efficiently across insurance contracts. The theoretical and empirical analysis highlights a previously unexplored, but fundamental, tradeoff between equity and efficiency that is unique to selection markets.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22440

Individuals vary in their preference for insurance and willingness to pay for it. Michael Geruso explains that insurance pricing that takes preference into consideration is welfare-improving and thus efficient. Yet efforts to improve equity by compensating for price discrimination result in a tradeoff between equity and efficiency. Do we care?

What the majority of us want is a health care system that is accessible to all and funded equitably based on ability to pay. Using the analogy of the tradeoff between equity and efficiency, a system funded by progressive taxes would be highly equitable but might be terribly inefficient because wealthier individuals might not have a preference to pay higher taxes.

The efficiency that we actually want to see is greater value in our health care purchasing through eliminating much of the administrative waste that occurs in our dysfunctional financing system. The economist’s construct of efficiency as representing a measure of individual preference should be a negligible consideration when we have the ability to create a health care financing system that is equitable – fair – for everyone regardless of ideological preference.

Exploring Single-Payer Alternatives for Health Care Reform

By Jodi L. Liu
Pardee RAND Graduate School Dissertation, May 2016

Abstract

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has reduced the number of uninsured and established new cost containment initiatives. However, interest in more comprehensive health care reform such as a single-payer system has persisted. Definitions of single-payer systems are heterogeneous, and estimates of the effects on spending vary. The objectives of this dissertation were to understand single-payer proposals and to estimate health care spending under single-payer alternatives in the United States.

Single-payer proposals are wide-ranging reform efforts spanning financing and delivery, but vary in the provisions. I modeled two sets of national scenarios – one labeled comprehensive and the other catastrophic – and compared insurance coverage and spending relative to the ACA in 2017. First, I estimated the effects of utilization and financing changes, and then I added the effects of “other savings and costs” relating to administration, drug and provider prices, and implementation.

Due to coverage of all legal residents and low cost sharing and prior to adjusting for other savings and costs, the comprehensive scenario increased national health care expenditures by $435 billion and federal expenditures by $1 trillion relative to the ACA. The range of the net effect of the other savings and costs in the literature was $1.5 trillion in savings to $140 billion in costs, with a mean estimate of $556 billion in savings. If this mean estimate was applied to the comprehensive scenario, national expenditures would be $121 billion lower but federal expenditures would still be $446 billion higher relative to the ACA. The catastrophic scenario also covered all legal residents but increased overall cost sharing, resulting in a reduction in national expenditures by $211 billion and federal expenditures by $40 billion even before adjusting for other savings and costs. Average household spending on health care in both sets of scenarios could be more progressive by income than spending under the ACA.

I also developed an interactive, web-based cost tool that allows the savings and cost assumptions to be adjusted by any user. As the debate on how to finance health care for all Americans continues, this study provides increased transparency about economic evaluations of health care reform.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD375.html

Full Dissertation (Free download – 157 pages):
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD300/RGSD375/RAND_RGSD375.pdf

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

For her doctorate dissertation at Pardee RAND Graduate School, Jodi Liu has produced a superb paper on single payer reform. Single payer supporters will want to download this paper, and I’ll explain why.

There remains some confusion as to the precise definition of single payer, and she shows us why by presenting the variations in twenty-five specific proposals, including, of course, the Proposal of the Physicians’ Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance – the 2003 version by Woolhandler, Himmelstein, et.al. Since PNHP supports a relatively precise, comprehensive model of single payer, many of the models she discusses we would not label as single payer, though we can see why others would (Vermont H 202 as an example). Because of this variation in design, it is difficult to state precisely what impact a generic single payer program would have. Each one is different.

She selects two sharply contrasting versions for specific analyses of health care spending: a comprehensive single payer proposal, the American Health Security Act (S 1782) of Sen Bernie Sanders and Rep Jim McDermott, and the Health-Insurance Solution, a “single payer” plan of catastrophic health insurance as proposed by Kip Hagopian and Dana Goldman. Although you can learn much on how not to design a single payer system from her analysis of the Hagopian/Goldman model, here we’ll mention only her findings on the Sanders/McDermott model since it is fairly similar to the PNHP proposal.

She first determines the increased spending that would occur by covering everyone with comprehensive benefits (actuarial value 98 percent). She then determines the effect of other savings and costs that are supported by published policy studies, such as the reduction in administrative waste and the greater value obtained through monopsonistic health care purchasing.

It will come as no surprise that her estimate of the mean net savings in national health expenditures would be about $121 billion under this proposal. The federal portion of spending would be about $446 billion higher than under ACA, but that is actually desirable because the proposed federal taxes would be more equitable that the fragmented funding system we have under ACA. She points out that the mean estimate of savings resulting from the other savings and costs according to the policy literature would be about $550 billion, but the range of the estimate would be between a savings of $1.5 trillion to increased costs of $114 billion. The wide variation in the interpretation of the policy literature explains to some extent the reason why various analysts have come up with very different results when analyzing single payer models.

People frequently ask what it would cost them if we had a single payer system, and they want to compare that to their current insurance premium. There are far too many variables to answer that without having a final markup of single payer legislation, plus most people do not realize how much they are paying for health care besides their insurance premiums and cost sharing, especially considering that over 60 percent of health care spending is paid through our tax system.

But people can get a good idea of average percent in personal savings by checking Figure C.2 in the Appendix of this paper. It shows that both the comprehensive base proposal (Sanders/McDermott) and the comprehensive alternative proposal (John Conyers HR 676) would provide significant savings for everyone except those over 1000 percent of the federal poverty level ($253,000 for a family of four).

Another great feature of this study is that the author has created an interactive Cost Tool which is “to improve the transparency of the estimates by disaggregating the effects and allow users to view, in real time, the results of adjusting the assumptions underlying the effects.” Although there still may be differences in opinions about the impact given to the various adjustments, it does bring us closer to understanding the overall financial impact of single payer reform. Although the Tool is not yet up on the Internet, in a personal communication Jodi Liu says that she hopes to have it available soon.

At any rate, this study shows once again that a well designed, comprehensive single payer system really would provide health care for everyone without increasing health care spending over the current level under ACA, based on the mean estimate of the financial impact of single payer.

So, again, download this paper now. It will be very helpful in your future advocacy for single payer.

Exploring Single-Payer Alternatives for Health Care Reform

By Jodi L. Liu
Pardee RAND Graduate School Dissertation, May 2016

Abstract

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has reduced the number of uninsured and established new cost containment initiatives. However, interest in more comprehensive health care reform such as a single-payer system has persisted. Definitions of single-payer systems are heterogeneous, and estimates of the effects on spending vary. The objectives of this dissertation were to understand single-payer proposals and to estimate health care spending under single-payer alternatives in the United States.

Single-payer proposals are wide-ranging reform efforts spanning financing and delivery, but vary in the provisions. I modeled two sets of national scenarios – one labeled comprehensive and the other catastrophic – and compared insurance coverage and spending relative to the ACA in 2017. First, I estimated the effects of utilization and financing changes, and then I added the effects of “other savings and costs” relating to administration, drug and provider prices, and implementation.

Due to coverage of all legal residents and low cost sharing and prior to adjusting for other savings and costs, the comprehensive scenario increased national health care expenditures by $435 billion and federal expenditures by $1 trillion relative to the ACA. The range of the net effect of the other savings and costs in the literature was $1.5 trillion in savings to $140 billion in costs, with a mean estimate of $556 billion in savings. If this mean estimate was applied to the comprehensive scenario, national expenditures would be $121 billion lower but federal expenditures would still be $446 billion higher relative to the ACA. The catastrophic scenario also covered all legal residents but increased overall cost sharing, resulting in a reduction in national expenditures by $211 billion and federal expenditures by $40 billion even before adjusting for other savings and costs. Average household spending on health care in both sets of scenarios could be more progressive by income than spending under the ACA.

I also developed an interactive, web-based cost tool that allows the savings and cost assumptions to be adjusted by any user. As the debate on how to finance health care for all Americans continues, this study provides increased transparency about economic evaluations of health care reform.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD375.html

Full Dissertation (Free download – 157 pages):
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD300/RGSD375/RAND_RGSD375.pdf

For her doctorate dissertation at Pardee RAND Graduate School, Jodi Liu has produced a superb paper on single payer reform. Single payer supporters will want to download this paper, and I’ll explain why.

There remains some confusion as to the precise definition of single payer, and she shows us why by presenting the variations in twenty-five specific proposals, including, of course, the Proposal of the Physicians’ Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance – the 2003 version by Woolhandler, Himmelstein, et.al. Since PNHP supports a relatively precise, comprehensive model of single payer, many of the models she discusses we would not label as single payer, though we can see why others would (Vermont H 202 as an example). Because of this variation in design, it is difficult to state precisely what impact a generic single payer program would have. Each one is different.

She selects two sharply contrasting versions for specific analyses of health care spending: a comprehensive single payer proposal, the American Health Security Act (S 1782) of Sen Bernie Sanders and Rep Jim McDermott, and the Health-Insurance Solution, a “single payer” plan of catastrophic health insurance as proposed by Kip Hagopian and Dana Goldman. Although you can learn much on how not to design a single payer system from her analysis of the Hagopian/Goldman model, here we’ll mention only her findings on the Sanders/McDermott model since it is fairly similar to the PNHP proposal.

She first determines the increased spending that would occur by covering everyone with comprehensive benefits (actuarial value 98 percent). She then determines the effect of other savings and costs that are supported by published policy studies, such as the reduction in administrative waste and the greater value obtained through monopsonistic health care purchasing.

It will come as no surprise that her estimate of the mean net savings in national health expenditures would be about $121 billion under this proposal. The federal portion of spending would be about $446 billion higher than under ACA, but that is actually desirable because the proposed federal taxes would be more equitable that the fragmented funding system we have under ACA. She points out that the mean estimate of savings resulting from the other savings and costs according to the policy literature would be about $550 billion, but the range of the estimate would be between a savings of $1.5 trillion to increased costs of $114 billion. The wide variation in the interpretation of the policy literature explains to some extent the reason why various analysts have come up with very different results when analyzing single payer models.

People frequently ask what it would cost them if we had a single payer system, and they want to compare that to their current insurance premium. There are far too many variables to answer that without having a final markup of single payer legislation, plus most people do not realize how much they are paying for health care besides their insurance premiums and cost sharing, especially considering that over 60 percent of health care spending is paid through our tax system.

But people can get a good idea of average percent in personal savings by checking Figure C.2 in the Appendix of this paper. It shows that both the comprehensive base proposal (Sanders/McDermott) and the comprehensive alternative proposal (John Conyers HR 676) would provide significant savings for everyone except those over 1000 percent of the federal poverty level ($253,000 for a family of four).

Another great feature of this study is that the author has created an interactive Cost Tool which is “to improve the transparency of the estimates by disaggregating the effects and allow users to view, in real time, the results of adjusting the assumptions underlying the effects.” Although there still may be differences in opinions about the impact given to the various adjustments, it does bring us closer to understanding the overall financial impact of single payer reform. Although the Tool is not yet up on the Internet, in a personal communication Jodi Liu says that she hopes to have it available soon.

At any rate, this study shows once again that a well designed, comprehensive single payer system really would provide health care for everyone without increasing health care spending over the current level under ACA, based on the mean estimate of the financial impact of single payer.

So, again, download this paper now. It will be very helpful in your future advocacy for single payer.

Some Seniors Surprised To Be Automatically Enrolled In Medicare Advantage Plans

By Susan Jaffe
Kaiser Health News, July 27, 2016

Only days after Judy Hanttula came home from the hospital after surgery last November, her doctor’s office called with bad news: Records showed that instead of traditional Medicare, she had a private Medicare Advantage plan, and her doctor and hospital were not in its network.

Neither the plan nor Medicare now would cover her medical costs. She owed $16,622.

After more than five hours making phone calls, she learned that because she’d had individual coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield when she became eligible for Medicare, the company automatically signed her up for its own Medicare Advantage plan after notifying her in a letter. Hanttula said she ignored all mail from insurers because she had chosen traditional Medicare.

With Medicare’s specific approval, a health insurance company can enroll a member of its marketplace or other commercial plan into its Medicare Advantage coverage when that individual becomes eligible for Medicare. Called “seamless conversion,” the process requires the insurer to send a letter explaining the new coverage, which takes effect unless the member opts out within 60 days.

Medicare officials refused recently to name the companies that have sought or received such approval or even to say how long the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has allowed the practice. Numerous insurers, including Cigna, Anthem and other Blue Cross Blue Shield subsidiaries, also declined to discuss whether they are automatically enrolling beneficiaries as they turn 65.

(David Lipschutz, a senior attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy) said giving beneficiaries the chance to opt out doesn’t adequately safeguard consumers. An insurer’s notification letter can easily be mistaken or overlooked in the deluge of marketing materials seniors receive.

“The right to opt out doesn’t exist if they didn’t get the notice or if they did get the notice but didn’t understand it,” he said.

http://khn.org/news/some-seniors-surprised-to-be-automatically-enrolled-in-medicare-advantage-plans/

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

We have provided numerous examples wherein CMS has provided the private Medicare Advantage plans with an unfair advantage over the traditional Medicare program, at a considerable cost to taxpayers. This is yet one more example. In a secretive process, CMS is allowing private insurers to automatically enroll their current clients in their Medicare Advantage plans without requiring them to opt in. Patients must understand what is happening and then take specific action to opt out if they would prefer to be enrolled in the traditional Medicare program.

The is one more step towards privatization of Medicare and the transition to a premium support program (voucher equivalent, with declining purchasing value over time). This is supported by anti-government conservatives and many neoliberals, but, worse, it is with the complicity of CMS.

Once we have a dominant market of competing private Medicare plans, the egalitarian nature of the Medicare program will have been irreparably damaged, and with it our hopes for an improved Medicare for all will have been dashed. The more complex the privatization of Medicare becomes, the greater the resistance to single payer since it “will not be feasible” to dismantle the administratively complex, expensive private health care financing system. So why is it now feasible for us to dismantle our efficient and less costly public Medicare program?

The feasibility argument of the privatizers is a con job. The longer we wait to move to single payer, the worse will be the transition.

Some Seniors Surprised To Be Automatically Enrolled In Medicare Advantage Plans

By Susan Jaffe
Kaiser Health News, July 27, 2016

Only days after Judy Hanttula came home from the hospital after surgery last November, her doctor’s office called with bad news: Records showed that instead of traditional Medicare, she had a private Medicare Advantage plan, and her doctor and hospital were not in its network.

Neither the plan nor Medicare now would cover her medical costs. She owed $16,622.

After more than five hours making phone calls, she learned that because she’d had individual coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield when she became eligible for Medicare, the company automatically signed her up for its own Medicare Advantage plan after notifying her in a letter. Hanttula said she ignored all mail from insurers because she had chosen traditional Medicare.

With Medicare’s specific approval, a health insurance company can enroll a member of its marketplace or other commercial plan into its Medicare Advantage coverage when that individual becomes eligible for Medicare. Called “seamless conversion,” the process requires the insurer to send a letter explaining the new coverage, which takes effect unless the member opts out within 60 days.

Medicare officials refused recently to name the companies that have sought or received such approval or even to say how long the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has allowed the practice. Numerous insurers, including Cigna, Anthem and other Blue Cross Blue Shield subsidiaries, also declined to discuss whether they are automatically enrolling beneficiaries as they turn 65.

(David Lipschutz, a senior attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy) said giving beneficiaries the chance to opt out doesn’t adequately safeguard consumers. An insurer’s notification letter can easily be mistaken or overlooked in the deluge of marketing materials seniors receive.

“The right to opt out doesn’t exist if they didn’t get the notice or if they did get the notice but didn’t understand it,” he said.

http://khn.org/news/some-seniors-surprised-to-be-automatically-enrolled-in-medicare-advantage-plans/

We have provided numerous examples wherein CMS has provided the private Medicare Advantage plans with an unfair advantage over the traditional Medicare program, at a considerable cost to taxpayers. This is yet one more example. In a secretive process, CMS is allowing private insurers to automatically enroll their current clients in their Medicare Advantage plans without requiring them to opt in. Patients must understand what is happening and then take specific action to opt out if they would prefer to be enrolled in the traditional Medicare program.

The is one more step towards privatization of Medicare and the transition to a premium support program (voucher equivalent, with declining purchasing value over time). This is supported by anti-government conservatives and many neoliberals, but, worse, it is with the complicity of CMS.

Once we have a dominant market of competing private Medicare plans, the egalitarian nature of the Medicare program will have been irreparably damaged, and with it our hopes for an improved Medicare for all will have been dashed. The more complex the privatization of Medicare becomes, the greater the resistance to single payer since it “will not be feasible” to dismantle the administratively complex, expensive private health care financing system. So why is it now feasible for us to dismantle our efficient and less costly public Medicare program?

The feasibility argument of the privatizers is a con job. The longer we wait to move to single payer, the worse will be the transition.

Saving Money on Cardiac Care

By Peter R. Orszag
Bloomberg View, July 25, 2016

The federal government’s own actuaries are once again pessimistic that America’s health-care costs will continue their slow growth. Thankfully, their boss, Sylvia Burwell, the secretary of Health and Human Services, is working hard to prove them wrong.

A key driver of this Medicare spending deceleration has been the health-care market’s expectation that the payment system is shifting toward value-based payments — that is, paying doctors, hospitals and other providers based on how well they treat medical problems rather than on how many services they provide.

At this point, it’s crucial to fulfill the market’s expectations. If the system now fails to move quickly away from fee-for-service payments, many recent efficiency efforts are likely to be dropped.

A big question is how. The most promising, and practical, path forward is to set up a cascading array of “bundled payments” — that is, all-inclusive reimbursement for specific episodes of care.

The bundled payments must be mandatory, as is Medicare’s bundle for hip and knee surgery — itself an historic step. Making the shift voluntary for hospitals and doctors leads to watered-down incentives, in an attempt to encourage participation. And weak incentives lead to disappointing outcomes.

Which brings us to Secretary Burwell’s important announcement Monday. She is building on the hip and knee bundle, not only by expanding into other forms of orthopedics but, importantly, by introducing mandatory bundles in cardiac care.

Medicare will pay a set fee for coronary artery bypass grafts, a form of surgery that improves blood flow to the heart. The agency will also pay a set fee for the care involved in responding to a heart attack.

The Medicare actuaries may question whether these new bundles can save much money, but that’s not too surprising; they’ve been missing the boat on the changing dynamic in health-care payments for years.

The bundled payments illustrate how the system is changing for the good. Secretary Burwell has just made it vividly clear to everyone in health care that the days of paying for volume are ending.

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-25/saving-money-on-cardiac-care-ir2iwfit

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Medicare doubles down on bundled payments

By Dan Diamond
Politico Pulse, July 26, 2016

With all eyes on the Democratic convention, CMS on Monday made a key move to secure the party’s signature health reform: It introduced its second bundled mandatory payment program, this one focused on cardiac care.

The bundled payment program is the latest big initiative in the Obamacare effort to bend the health cost curve. It’s also positioned to play a crucial role as the White House tries to tie 50 percent of Medicare payments to alternative care models by 2018. Liberal experts say they can’t get there with accountable care organizations and voluntary models alone, and that mandatory bundled payment programs are proven successes.

The decision to make both mandatory programs eligible as Advanced APMs under MACRA is intended to entice physicians to participate.

For veterans of the White House fight over Obamacare, Monday’s news felt like a valedictory. “Finally,” said Zeke Emanuel, who served as a White House aide and pushed for mandatory bundled payments to be included in the Affordable Care Act. (Cost controls like bundled payments were left out, in part, to minimize the law’s effect on the health care industry.) “I’m glad they drank my Kool-Aid.”

http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/politico-pulse#ixzz4FXIuha3F

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

The bureaucrats are fixated on the meme that we can reduce spending by paying for the value of health care rather than the volume. They have been disappointed with models such as accountable care organizations, and they are now turning to MACRA and its alternative payment models (APMs), with a renewed surge of interest in bundled payments.

The concept behind bundled payments is that, by assigning a single fee to a given intervention such as a joint replacement, you will motivate physicians to not spend money on portions of the care that are not really necessary. Medicare, as the payer, gets the advantage of a discounted price, and the physicians and hospitals get to keep whatever they save beyond the discount.

Does this really reduce volume? The joint replacement will be done regardless, so what volume will be reduced? Doing only a cursory pre-op exam, missing the ejection murmur and omitting the pre-op cardiac consult? Send a patient home earlier when it is possible that the post-op status might not be fully stabilized? Cut back on rehabilitation, risking a less favorable long term outcome? These might reduce volume, but they certain bring into question quality and thus value.

Now they want to pay a set bundled payment for a heart attack. The clinical course of a heart attack is highly variable and could involve only a few or a great many interventions. Under a bundled payment, the physicians and hospital are bearing the risk of the high costs of a potentially complicated, protracted course. Isn’t it the role of the insurer, in this case Medicare, to pool risk? Shifting that risk to the health care delivery system creates the potential for either a reduction in important beneficial health care services, or exposing the delivery system to potential monetary losses and the risk of insolvency – neither of which are desirable.

Perhaps an even more important issue is the fallacy that you can bundle most care and thus make strides in bending the cost curve. Think of the  current proposals to bundle coronary artery bypass grafts and to bundle care for a heart attack – one might work some of the time, but the other has outcomes that are too variable. Now think of other hospital admissions – such as workup of a protracted fever, diagnosis and management of an HIV positive patient who has symptoms of a potentially serious but undiagnosed complication, or perhaps a child with fatigue and weight loss. The costs and outcomes are highly variable. How can you bundle those? Or think of the multitude of patients presenting in a ten minute office visit with a set of complex clinical symptoms that would require extensive workups. How do you bundle those?

To get to the goal of fifty percent of Medicare payments being tied to APMs, you are going to have to figure how how to bundle the large numbers of common clinical presentations, like the sore throat that turns out to be due to acute leukemia, or the routine family planning visit in a patient who feels ill that day and turns out to have diabetic ketoacidosis, or the chronic headache patient who has a focal motor seizure in front of you during the visit. What would otherwise be routine medical visits are often not bundable but are better handled on a fee-for-service basis. That makes the point that most health care is provided in a relatively fixed volume. It is really difficult to reduce the volume for patients who actually need care, and that’s almost all patients. Besides, in most instances we really don’t know how to measure value and convert that into a fixed fee. Volume is relatively fixed, and value is what we all strive for anyway.

Peter Orzag and Ezekiel Emanuel don’t listen to others, not even the Medicare actuaries, but they should be able to figure out these obvious fundamentals. Since they haven’t, maybe it’s them who have been drinking Zeke’s Kool-Aid.

Since it’s really cost that they are concerned about we should move forward with reform that has been proven repeatedly to slow the rate of health care inflation – a single payer national health program. Peter and Zeke need to abandon their false meme that single payer is “not feasible.” What isn’t feasible is expecting to fix our dysfunctional health care financing system with “bundled payments.”