Medicare’s New Physician Payment System

Health Affairs, Health Policy Briefs, April 21, 2016

An overwhelming body of research in recent years found that medical care in the United States was neither efficient nor as effective as it could be. Inappropriate and excessive care is common even as rising health care costs burden government, business, and families.

Against this backdrop, government and private-sector leaders have resolved to transform how physicians are paid in a way that holds them more accountable for the care they deliver. The latest salvo in this effort was the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015, signed into law April 16, 2015.

What’s in the law?

Initially, physicians can choose a program called the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) or join an alternative payment model such as an accountable care organization or patient-centered medical home. If they make no choice or are deemed to be ineligible for an alternative payment model incentive payment, they will be assigned to MIPS.

At the same time, three existing payment incentive and quality improvement initiatives will be dissolved as separate programs and melded into MIPS. They are the Physician Quality Reporting System, Meaningful Use, and the Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier.

Physicians in MIPS must report performance measures to CMS. They’ll then be graded on four factors: quality of care (30 percent); resource use (30 percent); meaningful use of EHRs (25 percent); and clinical practice improvement activities (15 percent).

High-scoring physicians will get a bonus, and low-scoring physicians will see their fees reduced.

Physicians choosing the alternative payment model path will have to join an accountable care organization or an approved patient-centered medical home, or otherwise be in an alternative payment model entity where payment is at least partly based on quality performance and on total spending. Payment tied to performance must be 25 percent of a doctor’s or group practice’s Medicare revenue in 2019, increasing to 75 percent in 2022.

‘Volume to value’–slogan or sound policy?

Some critics argue that the volume-to-value movement is, for now, based more on faith than on strong evidence. For example, they cite the experience of countries in Europe that control spending primarily through regulating prices and fees in fee-for-service systems, instead of through performance measurement and payment incentives.

Critics also argue that “value” in medicine is an elusive concept and not one likely to be pinned down through a single composite score. As yet, these critics further allege, value has not been clearly pegged or produced by accountable care organizations, patient-centered medical homes, or integrated health care systems.

http://www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief.php?brief_id=156

***

The Mess That is MACRA

By Kip Sullivan
The Health Care Blog, April 21, 2016

MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act) is a mess. It is extremely difficult to comprehend, it is based on assumptions that defy commonsense and research, and it may raise costs.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) would never say what I have just said, but MedPAC definitely understands MACRA’s defects. The transcripts of MedPAC’s October 8, 2015 and January 15, 2016 meetings indicate that members and staff perceive daunting impediments to the implementation of MACRA. But those transcripts also suggest that MedPAC won’t tell Congress to rewrite or repeal MACRA. Rather, the evidence suggests MedPAC will mince words. It appears MedPAC will send CMS and Congress a few wishes dressed up as “principles” and wait for MACRA’s inevitable failure before offering more useful advice.

MIPS: Measuring the unmeasurable

The MIPS program was designed for doctors who can’t or won’t join the ACO-medical-home bandwagon. MIPS inflicts huge rewards and penalties (up to 9 percent of the average annual Part B payout per physician) based on a single “value” score (a score derived by the capricious jamming of crude quality and cost measures into one number) for each doctor. As commissioner Gradison put it, MIPS was designed for “the laggards, the people who stand for the status quo,” the knuckle-draggers who just won’t get with the Managed Care 2.0 program.

Sand castles on top of sand castles: The APM program

I suspect the reason Congress did not populate the APM compartment with clearly defined entities is that Boehner et al. knew full well that the first iteration of “value-based” entities – the ACOs and “medical homes” authorized by the Affordable Care Act – have not panned out. We know that MedPAC understands that. In its reports to Congress, and in statements by staff and members, MedPAC has clearly indicated they understand that ACOs and “homes” are saving little or no money and are having at best minor and mixed effects on quality.

It is fair to say, then, that MedPAC understands that Congress has essentially instructed CMS to build a new layer of undefined, unproven APMs on top of the existing layer of poorly defined and unproven ACOs and “homes,” in other words, a second layer of sand castles over an existing layer of sand castles.

Congress and CMS don’t need to hear any more abstract and wishful remarks about MACRA. They need to hear useful feedback. MedPAC should tell Congress MACRA is an unworkable mess and must be repealed or amended.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/04/21/the-mess-that-is-macra/

***

Physician Burnout Is a Public Health Crisis, Ethicist Says

By Arthur L. Caplan, PhD
Medscape, March 4, 2016

We’ve got a problem in this country with doctors. It’s kind of an epidemic, but no one is talking about it. It is burnout. A recent study from the Mayo Clinic showed that in 2011, 45.5% of doctors reported that they felt burned out, and that number has now risen to 54.4% in 2014.

This is really trouble. It’s trouble because a doctor who feels this way can commit more errors. They suffer from compassion fatigue, or just not being able to empathize with others because they have their own emotional issues. They may retire early, thereby reducing the workforce. They may have problems managing their own lives; 400 doctors committed suicide last year, which is double the rate of the population average. There’s trouble for patients in having a workforce that’s burned out. There’s trouble for doctors in terms of their own health and well-being.

When we institute new software or when we have new bureaucratic regulations, I think somebody ought to ask what this does to the workforce. If one more doctor complains to me about Epic and other types of electronic record keeping and billing forms, it’ll be one doctor too many. It takes a lot of energy. It makes people unhappy. A lot of the software and computer assistance that’s out there doesn’t seem to help the doctor; it makes more work or makes them frustrated. It also seems to me that if you look at what’s going on with respect to regulations and administrative or bureaucratic requirements, nobody is saying, “Hey, is this user-friendly? What’s the burden that it’s putting on the doctor?” It’s just done to save money or allow people to collect bills more reliably, but it’s not asking what it’s taking out of our workforce.

Arthur L. Caplan, PhD is from the Division of Medical Ethics at the New York University Langone Medical Center.

We now have an epidemic of physician burnout. It has become a crisis not only because of what it does to physicians’ well-being but also because of a deterioration in the all-important physician-patient relationship and in the medical practice environment.

A major contributor to burnout is the subversion of physician independence to the massive misdirected oversight interposed by public and private insurance bureaucracies. Little need be said about the private insurance bureaucracies that waste tremendous resources while creating havoc in our health care delivery system. We merely need to eliminate the private insurers and replace them with a single payer national health program.

Our government has established policies that result in Medicare gradually being shifted to the private Medicare Advantage insurers and Medicaid being shifted to private managed care organizations. In the past we’ve covered the reasons why privatization is a terrible idea, and we won’t go into that now. We’ll merely say that moving on to single payer should eliminate the privatization schemes.

Today’s message is more narrowly targeted to the problem that the public bureaucracies are creating, especially Medicare. MACRA with its MIPS (merit-based incentive payment system) and its APMs (alternative payment models) epitomize the bureaucratic interference of the federal government in our public programs. For more details, you should read the full articles cited today. These are concepts thought up by the policy community working with our government bureaucrats. They are relying on intuition since there is little in policy science to support MIPS and APMs. Initial results have been quite disappointing yet they are moving full steam ahead with these programs.

The burden on physicians and other health professionals will be great and can only exacerbate current trends leading to burnout. Public policies that make health care worse are unethical policies – the gist of today’s message.

We need to expand policies that serve the public in their need to have affordable access to health care. On May 5 we will be releasing an update of the Physicians’ Proposal which describes the policies we need to ensure comprehensive health care for everyone, in a pleasant environment that optimizes the health care experience. Watch for it.

Once we have that system in place it will be imperative for us to exercise continuing due diligence in ensuring that our political and policy stewards support the ideology of health care justice for all through public policies, while dismissing would-be stewards who support Randian you’re-on-your-own ideology that dominates the private arena.

Robin Wright King on Consumer Reactions to HDHPs

AJMC.com, April 17, 2016

Robin Wright King, MBA, of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, discusses consumer reactions to high-deductible health plans, which ask them to shoulder more of the burden of the cost of their healthcare.

How do consumers react to the new health plans that ask them to shoulder more costs?

“I don’t believe members are excited, generally, about the concept of having to shoulder more of the cost, but these high-deductible health plans are here to stay. And employers are trending towards engaging in these higher deductible health plans more and more. As a matter of fact, many employers are moving to these plans as full replacement plans. Again, we really have the responsibility – and many employers want us as a health plan to be more involved – to help their members understand their plans.”

http://www.ajmc.com/interviews/robin-wright-king-on-consumer-reactions-to-hdhps

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Blue Cross Blue Shield members are not excited about having to shoulder more of the cost through high-deductible health plans, but these plans are here to stay. So much for consumer choice.

Chutzpah!

Robin Wright King on Consumer Reactions to HDHPs

AJMC.com, April 17, 2016

Robin Wright King, MBA, of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, discusses consumer reactions to high-deductible health plans, which ask them to shoulder more of the burden of the cost of their healthcare.

How do consumers react to the new health plans that ask them to shoulder more costs?

“I don’t believe members are excited, generally, about the concept of having to shoulder more of the cost, but these high-deductible health plans are here to stay. And employers are trending towards engaging in these higher deductible health plans more and more. As a matter of fact, many employers are moving to these plans as full replacement plans. Again, we really have the responsibility – and many employers want us as a health plan to be more involved – to help their members understand their plans.”

http://www.ajmc.com/interviews/robin-wright-king-on-consumer-reactions-to-hdhps

Blue Cross Blue Shield members are not excited about having to shoulder more of the cost through high-deductible health plans, but these plans are here to stay. So much for consumer choice.

Chutzpah!

What Can US Single-Payer Supporters Learn From the Swiss Rejection of Single Payer?

By Claudia Chaufan
International Journal of Health Services, 2016, Vol. 46(2) 331–345

Abstract

On September 27, 2014, Swiss voters rejected a proposal to replace their system of about 60 health insurance companies offering mandatory basic health coverage with a single public insurer, the state, which would offer taxpayer-funded coverage of all medically necessary care. The Swiss and the U.S. media, academia, and business sectors, from conservative and liberal camps, interpreted the results to mean a rejection of single payer and a preference for a privately run system, with important implications for health reform in the United States. While on the surface mainstream interpretations appear reasonable, I argue that they have little basis on fact because they rely on assumptions that, while untrue, are repeated as mantras that conveniently justify the continuation of a model of health insurance that is unraveling, less conspicuously in Switzerland, dramatically in the United States. To make my case, I describe the dominant narrative about Swiss health care and mainstream interpretations of the latest referendum on health reform, unpack the problem within these interpretations, and conclude by identifying what lessons the Swiss referendum contains for single payer advocates in the United States in particular and for those who struggle for social and economic rights more generally.

Lessons to be Learned

Why, then, was single payer defeated? What, if anything, can single payer supporters learn from this defeat? First, we must grant that the state of Swiss health care may be of concern for the Swiss (who seem to have lower tolerance for being deprived of health care than Americans), but is still not bad enough. People who experience the greatest barriers to care, in Switzerland as elsewhere, are the most politically disenfranchised—young, poor, women, and immigrants, much like they are in the United States—so the problem has yet to strike the so- called middle classes badly enough.

Yet the Swiss case can help single payer supporters, and other social justice advocates, experience and gauge the extraordinary power of propaganda of the corporate class, in health care matters as in others. The scare tactics against single payer displayed by corporate interests in Switzerland have been extraordinary, in both 2007 and this latest referendum. As the BBC timidly suggested, one reason for the failure “may be the power of the insurance sector and of the big pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland […] Both have strong lobby groups.” And yet, none of the single payer or other relevant referenda indicate that love of private health insurance is increasing. If anything, they lay bare the reality that even in the land of direct democracy, as in Switzerland, the attempt to achieve health care justice through a system of “competing private insurers” is a delusion. They also indicate that more political education is necessary to achieve single payer. This, I believe, is as true for the Swiss as it is for the American people.

The Swiss referendum also teaches activists that corporate propaganda is vicious not only when it comes to portraying the presumed evils of single payer or beauty of private health insurance. It is also vicious when it comes to interpreting, and communicating to the public, voting patterns and preferences in health care matters.

The power of corporate propaganda matters because its self-serving interpretation can operate like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The narrative that “the people” prefer the status quo, and the dubious assumption that the people’s will is the key driver of policy, especially in America, can lead public health care advocates to conclude that those who struggle for greater social justice are more alone than they really are, rather than interpreting the resilience of current power structures as indicating that the corporate class owns, and controls, the means of communication as much or more than it owns and controls the means of production, and is thus able to shape the public debate to suit their interests. As a result of this, advocates may give up the fight too soon, or worse, retreat and accommodate to the boundaries of change as set by this corporate class.

In concluding, I propose that the Swiss referendum teaches us that: 1) We need to sharpen our analytic tools, i.e., to improve our understanding of what the ACA is really about, what the real challenges (and enemies!) are, and what our alternatives could and should be; 2) We must increase our outreach to those sectors of society who do not have a voice, or whose voices are suppressed, or who do not think that their voices make a difference; and finally 3) We must work on improving the political education of those we wish to reach, rather than investing in “improving the message” (as many political “experts” recommend). This is usually a message of sound bites without substance which more often than not leads to attempts to fit social change within the boundaries of the “politically feasible” as defined by that same corporate class.

As Americans celebrate this year the 50th anniversary of Medicare, and many, even insured, continue to forgo needed care, they are being told that “Medicare was enacted in a very different environment than we live today” and that some privatization is inevitable and even desirable. However, the results of the Swiss referendum teach us that we need more, not less — nor more accommodating — struggle for single payer and health care justice, in the words, albeit not in the spirit, of Milton Friedman, until the “politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”*

* “Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
— Milton Friedman

Claudia Chaufan, MD, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of California San Francisco and a member of Physicians for a National Health Program.

http://joh.sagepub.com/content/46/2/331.abstract

OECD/WHO report on the Swiss health system

Comment by Don McCanne, M.D.
Quote of the Day, October 24, 2011

“It is not clear why so many in the U.S. are enamored of the Swiss health insurance system when this OECD/WHO report confirms that it is highly inefficient and fragmented, with profound administrative waste, inequitably funded, with regressive financing and with wide variations in premiums, has the highest out-of-pocket costs, has an increasing prevalence of managed care intrusions, and is controlled by a private insurance industry that has learned how to game risk selection at significant cost to those on the losing end.”

https://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/october/oecdwho-report-on-the-swiss-health-system

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

At a time of renewed interest in single payer reform in the United States, it might be helpful to look again at why the voters of Switzerland rejected single payer reform in September, 2014. Although their financing system is superior to ours, it does have several serious deficiencies that would be addressed by converting to a single payer system. In this article, Claudia Chaufan discusses lessons that we can learn from the Swiss that may help us in our advocacy for reform.

What Can US Single-Payer Supporters Learn From the Swiss Rejection of Single Payer?

By Claudia Chaufan
International Journal of Health Services, 2016, Vol. 46(2) 331–345

Abstract

On September 27, 2014, Swiss voters rejected a proposal to replace their system of about 60 health insurance companies offering mandatory basic health coverage with a single public insurer, the state, which would offer taxpayer-funded coverage of all medically necessary care. The Swiss and the U.S. media, academia, and business sectors, from conservative and liberal camps, interpreted the results to mean a rejection of single payer and a preference for a privately run system, with important implications for health reform in the United States. While on the surface mainstream interpretations appear reasonable, I argue that they have little basis on fact because they rely on assumptions that, while untrue, are repeated as mantras that conveniently justify the continuation of a model of health insurance that is unraveling, less conspicuously in Switzerland, dramatically in the United States. To make my case, I describe the dominant narrative about Swiss health care and mainstream interpretations of the latest referendum on health reform, unpack the problem within these interpretations, and conclude by identifying what lessons the Swiss referendum contains for single payer advocates in the United States in particular and for those who struggle for social and economic rights more generally.

Lessons to be Learned

Why, then, was single payer defeated? What, if anything, can single payer supporters learn from this defeat? First, we must grant that the state of Swiss health care may be of concern for the Swiss (who seem to have lower tolerance for being deprived of health care than Americans), but is still not bad enough. People who experience the greatest barriers to care, in Switzerland as elsewhere, are the most politically disenfranchised—young, poor, women, and immigrants, much like they are in the United States—so the problem has yet to strike the so- called middle classes badly enough.

Yet the Swiss case can help single payer supporters, and other social justice advocates, experience and gauge the extraordinary power of propaganda of the corporate class, in health care matters as in others. The scare tactics against single payer displayed by corporate interests in Switzerland have been extraordinary, in both 2007 and this latest referendum. As the BBC timidly suggested, one reason for the failure “may be the power of the insurance sector and of the big pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland […] Both have strong lobby groups.” And yet, none of the single payer or other relevant referenda indicate that love of private health insurance is increasing. If anything, they lay bare the reality that even in the land of direct democracy, as in Switzerland, the attempt to achieve health care justice through a system of “competing private insurers” is a delusion. They also indicate that more political education is necessary to achieve single payer. This, I believe, is as true for the Swiss as it is for the American people.

The Swiss referendum also teaches activists that corporate propaganda is vicious not only when it comes to portraying the presumed evils of single payer or beauty of private health insurance. It is also vicious when it comes to interpreting, and communicating to the public, voting patterns and preferences in health care matters.

The power of corporate propaganda matters because its self-serving interpretation can operate like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The narrative that “the people” prefer the status quo, and the dubious assumption that the people’s will is the key driver of policy, especially in America, can lead public health care advocates to conclude that those who struggle for greater social justice are more alone than they really are, rather than interpreting the resilience of current power structures as indicating that the corporate class owns, and controls, the means of communication as much or more than it owns and controls the means of production, and is thus able to shape the public debate to suit their interests. As a result of this, advocates may give up the fight too soon, or worse, retreat and accommodate to the boundaries of change as set by this corporate class.

In concluding, I propose that the Swiss referendum teaches us that: 1) We need to sharpen our analytic tools, i.e., to improve our understanding of what the ACA is really about, what the real challenges (and enemies!) are, and what our alternatives could and should be; 2) We must increase our outreach to those sectors of society who do not have a voice, or whose voices are suppressed, or who do not think that their voices make a difference; and finally 3) We must work on improving the political education of those we wish to reach, rather than investing in “improving the message” (as many political “experts” recommend). This is usually a message of sound bites without substance which more often than not leads to attempts to fit social change within the boundaries of the “politically feasible” as defined by that same corporate class.

As Americans celebrate this year the 50th anniversary of Medicare, and many, even insured, continue to forgo needed care, they are being told that “Medicare was enacted in a very different environment than we live today” and that some privatization is inevitable and even desirable. However, the results of the Swiss referendum teach us that we need more, not less — nor more accommodating — struggle for single payer and health care justice, in the words, albeit not in the spirit, of Milton Friedman, until the “politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”*

* “Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
— Milton Friedman

Claudia Chaufan, MD, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of California San Francisco and a member of Physicians for a National Health Program.

http://joh.sagepub.com/content/46/2/331.abstract

OECD/WHO report on the Swiss health system

Comment by Don McCanne, M.D.
Quote of the Day, October 24, 2011

“It is not clear why so many in the U.S. are enamored of the Swiss health insurance system when this OECD/WHO report confirms that it is highly inefficient and fragmented, with profound administrative waste, inequitably funded, with regressive financing and with wide variations in premiums, has the highest out-of-pocket costs, has an increasing prevalence of managed care intrusions, and is controlled by a private insurance industry that has learned how to game risk selection at significant cost to those on the losing end.”

https://pnhp.org/news/2011/october/oecdwho-report-on-the-swiss-health-system

At a time of renewed interest in single payer reform in the United States, it might be helpful to look again at why the voters of Switzerland rejected single payer reform in September, 2014. Although their financing system is superior to ours, it does have several serious deficiencies that would be addressed by converting to a single payer system. In this article, Claudia Chaufan discusses lessons that we can learn from the Swiss that may help us in our advocacy for reform.

Debunking Republican Health Care Myths

By The Editorial Board
The New York Times, April 19, 2016

“Disaster.” “Incredible economic burden.” “The biggest job-killer in this country.”

Central to the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz has been the claim that the Affordable Care Act has been a complete failure, and that the only way to save the country from this scourge is to replace it with something they design.

It’s worth examining the big myths they are peddling about the Affordable Care Act and also their ill-conceived plans of what might replace it.

Millions of people have lost their insurance: In January, Mr. Cruz claimed that “millions of Americans” had lost their health insurance because of the health reform law. He even claimed to be one of them, saying “our health care got canceled” because Blue Cross Blue Shield left the individual market in Texas.

Insurers did stop offering some plans after the law took effect, including those that didn’t provide required benefits like maternity care or that charged higher premiums to older or sicker people. But people with those plans had the opportunity to sign up for others. And over all, the law has drastically reduced the number of Americans who lack health insurance. According to the Census Bureau, the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 10 million between 2010, when the law passed, and 2014. While critics said employers might stop offering health insurance because of the law, three million people actually gained coverage through their employers between 2010 and 2014.

Incidentally, Mr. Cruz never lost his health insurance. Blue Cross Blue Shield did cancel his particular plan, but it automatically moved him and his family to a new one. A Cruz spokeswoman said the senator had been misinformed by his insurance broker.

Millions of people have lost their jobs: Mr. Cruz has called the Affordable Care Act “the biggest job-killer in this country” and said “millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work” because of it. This is false. The unemployment rate has fallen since the law took effect, PolitiFact notes, as has the number of people working part time when they would rather work full time. A 2015 study using data from the Current Population Survey found that the law “had virtually no adverse effect on labor force participation, employment or usual hours worked per week through 2014.”

Reduce costs by weakening state regulations: Mr. Trump frequently talks about his plan to “get rid of the lines around the states” to foster competition among insurance companies. Customers in states where insurance is heavily regulated, the thinking goes, would be able to save money if they could purchase coverage from insurers based in states with fewer rules. Mr. Cruz, too, supports allowing people to buy insurance across state borders — it’s one of the few proposals he’s offered for replacing the health law if it is repealed.

But the biggest obstacle stopping insurers from setting up in more states is not regulation; it’s the difficulty of establishing a network of providers in a new market. And such a structure would destroy the longstanding ability of states to regulate health insurance for their populations. Some states, for instance, require coverage for infertility treatment and others have chosen not to. Allowing cross-border plans would encourage insurers to base themselves in low-regulation states, and the result might be a proliferation of poor-quality plans.

The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. Premiums for plans on the exchanges rose between 2015 and 2016 and are likely to rise again next year. A few insurers have left the exchange market, raising concerns in some quarters that more companies might follow.

But the law has helped millions of Americans, especially low-wage workers like cashiers, cooks and waiters who previously struggled to pay for coverage. In inventing problems that don’t exist and proposing solutions that won’t help, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz show that they don’t care about helping Americans get health care, which has never been their interest. They want to trash the Affordable Care Act, and they’re willing to mislead the public any way they can.

Reader Comments – NYT Picks:

By Don McCanne, M.D.
San Juan Capistrano, CA

How about debunking the Democratic ACA myths?

ACA is universal, except for 29 million left out.

ACA is affordable, except for the premiums and deductibles.

ACA provides choice, within narrower networks.

ACA replaces quantity with quality, except we haven’t figured out how to do that.

ACA doesn’t force us into a one-size-fits-all plan, though we are relieved when we are finally eligible for Medicare.

In fact, when the Democrats were in control, they rejected the plan that would have worked for all of us – a single payer, improved version of Medicare for all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/opinion/debunking-republican-health-care-myths.html

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

The Republicans keep talking about coming up with a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But as this New York Times editorial explains, their criticisms of ACA are often not fact-based and the proposals they have telegraphed in net would leave us much worse off. Yet, as the Democrats tout the successes of ACA, it is clear that their model falls far short of the high performance system that we deserve.

The health policies that we need are straightforward and are found in a well designed, single payer Medicare for all program. It is the politics that has botched up our health care system.

In a recent Quote of the Day, Jonathan Oberlander’s NEJM article was cited as he explained why the political prospects for single payer are dismal. To change that, we need to listen to and act on his words: “Single-payer supporters have not articulated a convincing strategy for overcoming the formidable obstacles that stand in its way. Nor have they, despite substantial public support for single payer, succeeded in mobilizing a social movement that could potentially break down those barriers.”

The politicians will not lead on single payer; the people must.

Debunking Republican Health Care Myths

By The Editorial Board
The New York Times, April 19, 2016

“Disaster.” “Incredible economic burden.” “The biggest job-killer in this country.”

Central to the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz has been the claim that the Affordable Care Act has been a complete failure, and that the only way to save the country from this scourge is to replace it with something they design.

It’s worth examining the big myths they are peddling about the Affordable Care Act and also their ill-conceived plans of what might replace it.

Millions of people have lost their insurance: In January, Mr. Cruz claimed that “millions of Americans” had lost their health insurance because of the health reform law. He even claimed to be one of them, saying “our health care got canceled” because Blue Cross Blue Shield left the individual market in Texas.

Insurers did stop offering some plans after the law took effect, including those that didn’t provide required benefits like maternity care or that charged higher premiums to older or sicker people. But people with those plans had the opportunity to sign up for others. And over all, the law has drastically reduced the number of Americans who lack health insurance. According to the Census Bureau, the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 10 million between 2010, when the law passed, and 2014. While critics said employers might stop offering health insurance because of the law, three million people actually gained coverage through their employers between 2010 and 2014.

Incidentally, Mr. Cruz never lost his health insurance. Blue Cross Blue Shield did cancel his particular plan, but it automatically moved him and his family to a new one. A Cruz spokeswoman said the senator had been misinformed by his insurance broker.

Millions of people have lost their jobs: Mr. Cruz has called the Affordable Care Act “the biggest job-killer in this country” and said “millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work” because of it. This is false. The unemployment rate has fallen since the law took effect, PolitiFact notes, as has the number of people working part time when they would rather work full time. A 2015 study using data from the Current Population Survey found that the law “had virtually no adverse effect on labor force participation, employment or usual hours worked per week through 2014.”

Reduce costs by weakening state regulations: Mr. Trump frequently talks about his plan to “get rid of the lines around the states” to foster competition among insurance companies. Customers in states where insurance is heavily regulated, the thinking goes, would be able to save money if they could purchase coverage from insurers based in states with fewer rules. Mr. Cruz, too, supports allowing people to buy insurance across state borders — it’s one of the few proposals he’s offered for replacing the health law if it is repealed.

But the biggest obstacle stopping insurers from setting up in more states is not regulation; it’s the difficulty of establishing a network of providers in a new market. And such a structure would destroy the longstanding ability of states to regulate health insurance for their populations. Some states, for instance, require coverage for infertility treatment and others have chosen not to. Allowing cross-border plans would encourage insurers to base themselves in low-regulation states, and the result might be a proliferation of poor-quality plans.

The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. Premiums for plans on the exchanges rose between 2015 and 2016 and are likely to rise again next year. A few insurers have left the exchange market, raising concerns in some quarters that more companies might follow.

But the law has helped millions of Americans, especially low-wage workers like cashiers, cooks and waiters who previously struggled to pay for coverage. In inventing problems that don’t exist and proposing solutions that won’t help, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz show that they don’t care about helping Americans get health care, which has never been their interest. They want to trash the Affordable Care Act, and they’re willing to mislead the public any way they can.

Reader Comments – NYT Picks:

By Don McCanne, M.D.
San Juan Capistrano, CA

How about debunking the Democratic ACA myths?

ACA is universal, except for 29 million left out.

ACA is affordable, except for the premiums and deductibles.

ACA provides choice, within narrower networks.

ACA replaces quantity with quality, except we haven’t figured out how to do that.

ACA doesn’t force us into a one-size-fits-all plan, though we are relieved when we are finally eligible for Medicare.

In fact, when the Democrats were in control, they rejected the plan that would have worked for all of us – a single payer, improved version of Medicare for all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/opinion/debunking-republican-health-care-myths.html

The Republicans keep talking about coming up with a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But as this New York Times editorial explains, their criticisms of ACA are often not fact-based and the proposals they have telegraphed in net would leave us much worse off. Yet, as the Democrats tout the successes of ACA, it is clear that their model falls far short of the high performance system that we deserve.

The health policies that we need are straightforward and are found in a well designed, single payer Medicare for all program. It is the politics that has botched up our health care system.

In a recent Quote of the Day, Jonathan Oberlander’s NEJM article was cited as he explained why the political prospects for single payer are dismal. To change that, we need to listen to and act on his words: “Single-payer supporters have not articulated a convincing strategy for overcoming the formidable obstacles that stand in its way. Nor have they, despite substantial public support for single payer, succeeded in mobilizing a social movement that could potentially break down those barriers.”

The politicians will not lead on single payer; the people must.

NBER Working Paper No. 22170: The Effect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansions on Financial Well-Being

By Luojia Hu, Robert Kaestner, Bhashkar Mazumder, Sarah Miller, and Ashley Wong
National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2016

Abstract

We examine the effect of the Medicaid expansions under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) on financial outcomes using credit report data for a large sample of individuals. We employ the synthetic control method (Abadie et al., 2010) to compare individuals living in states that expanded Medicaid to those that did not. We find that the Medicaid expansions significantly reduced the number of unpaid bills and the amount of debt sent to third-party collection agencies among those residing in zip codes with the highest share of low income, uninsured individuals. Our estimates imply a reduction in collection balances of around $600 to $1,000 among those who gain Medicaid coverage due to the ACA. Our findings suggest that the ACA Medicaid expansions had important financial impacts beyond health care use.

From the Introduction

In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, which included a provision to expand Medicaid eligibility to low-income adults, many of whom were previously ineligible. A major motivation for this expansion was to provide financial security to individuals if they experience a sudden deterioration in their health and cannot afford to pay for their medical expenses.

Indeed, the financial consequences of not having health insurance can be severe for individuals who become seriously ill or injured. Studies using survey data suggest that the uninsured often have difficulty paying medical expenses, become delinquent on their medical and non-medical bills, and are more likely to be contacted by collection agencies.

Our main finding is that Medicaid expansions that began in 2014 significantly reduced the number of unpaid non-medical bills and the amount of non-medical debt sent to third-party collection agencies among people living in zip codes that are most likely affected by the expansions. Our baseline intention-to-treat (ITT) estimates indicate that the Medicaid expansions are associated with a decrease in the amount of unpaid balances in collections of between $51 and $85. This effect is an average over the entire sample and includes many individuals who did not obtain Medicaid insurance coverage through the expansion. Rescaling this estimate based on the fraction of the target population who were likely to have obtained insurance coverage yields estimates of the effect of treatment on the treated (ToT) of between $600 and $1,000.

From the Conclusion

The financial protection provided by health insurance is arguably its most important function. This is particularly true in the case of Medicaid because of the relatively high prevalence of disease among low-income individuals and the substantial financial burden that illness imposes on those who become seriously ill or injured. Indeed, a major justification for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 was to provide such financial protection.

While these results show that the ACA Medicaid expansions had important financial impacts outside of health care use, they are also consistent with recent work documenting that much of the incidence of these financial effects falls on third parties as much as the uninsured themselves. Given that the ACA Medicaid expansions decreased unpaid bills, the financial benefits of the ACA expansions appear to fall at least partially on third-party creditors. As a result, those individuals who gained coverage through the ACA Medicaid expansions may have better access to credit markets in the future.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22170.pdf

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

The results of this study are intuitive. Low-income individuals who obtain Medicaid insurance coverage not only are protected from medical bills when they must access health care, they also have a reduction in other unpaid bills and a lower incidence of account referral to collection agencies – a benefit to both the patients and their potential third-party creditors.

The authors state, “The financial protection provided by health insurance is arguably its most important function. This is particularly true in the case of Medicaid because of the relatively high prevalence of disease among low-income individuals and the substantial financial burden that illness imposes on those who become seriously ill or injured.”

Individuals who face large deductibles and other cost sharing in individual plans and employer-sponsored plans or who have inadequate subsidies for cost sharing in the ACA exchange plans are frequently exposed to financial hardship. It is the near absence of cost sharing (deductibles, copayments and coinsurance) in the Medicaid program that has made it so effective in protecting the personal finances of otherwise vulnerable individuals – in sharp contrast to the increasing financial burdens resulting from the inadequacies of the private plans.

Medicaid does have other problems. Too many physicians refuse to accept Medicaid patients because of the very low payment rates, especially specialists, thus access may be impaired. Also many states are shoving patients into Medicaid managed care plans to save even more money, and early experience suggests that there is a further deterioration in patient access and service. Thus merely expanding Medicaid is not a satisfactory solution to filling in our voids in health care today.

The lesson from this study is not that Medicaid should be expanded but rather that health insurance should provide complete financial protection from health care costs. That is proposed as one of the more important improvements in an Improved Medicare for All – a single payer national health program. Everyone could have health care without causing financial hardship for anyone. Costs would be controlled in a more patient-friendly manner by application of other important single payer policies.

NBER Working Paper No. 22170: The Effect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansions on Financial Well-Being

By Luojia Hu, Robert Kaestner, Bhashkar Mazumder, Sarah Miller, and Ashley Wong
National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2016

Abstract

We examine the effect of the Medicaid expansions under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) on financial outcomes using credit report data for a large sample of individuals. We employ the synthetic control method (Abadie et al., 2010) to compare individuals living in states that expanded Medicaid to those that did not. We find that the Medicaid expansions significantly reduced the number of unpaid bills and the amount of debt sent to third-party collection agencies among those residing in zip codes with the highest share of low income, uninsured individuals. Our estimates imply a reduction in collection balances of around $600 to $1,000 among those who gain Medicaid coverage due to the ACA. Our findings suggest that the ACA Medicaid expansions had important financial impacts beyond health care use.

From the Introduction

In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, which included a provision to expand Medicaid eligibility to low-income adults, many of whom were previously ineligible. A major motivation for this expansion was to provide financial security to individuals if they experience a sudden deterioration in their health and cannot afford to pay for their medical expenses.

Indeed, the financial consequences of not having health insurance can be severe for individuals who become seriously ill or injured. Studies using survey data suggest that the uninsured often have difficulty paying medical expenses, become delinquent on their medical and non-medical bills, and are more likely to be contacted by collection agencies.

Our main finding is that Medicaid expansions that began in 2014 significantly reduced the number of unpaid non-medical bills and the amount of non-medical debt sent to third-party collection agencies among people living in zip codes that are most likely affected by the expansions. Our baseline intention-to-treat (ITT) estimates indicate that the Medicaid expansions are associated with a decrease in the amount of unpaid balances in collections of between $51 and $85. This effect is an average over the entire sample and includes many individuals who did not obtain Medicaid insurance coverage through the expansion. Rescaling this estimate based on the fraction of the target population who were likely to have obtained insurance coverage yields estimates of the effect of treatment on the treated (ToT) of between $600 and $1,000.

From the Conclusion

The financial protection provided by health insurance is arguably its most important function. This is particularly true in the case of Medicaid because of the relatively high prevalence of disease among low-income individuals and the substantial financial burden that illness imposes on those who become seriously ill or injured. Indeed, a major justification for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 was to provide such financial protection.

While these results show that the ACA Medicaid expansions had important financial impacts outside of health care use, they are also consistent with recent work documenting that much of the incidence of these financial effects falls on third parties as much as the uninsured themselves. Given that the ACA Medicaid expansions decreased unpaid bills, the financial benefits of the ACA expansions appear to fall at least partially on third-party creditors. As a result, those individuals who gained coverage through the ACA Medicaid expansions may have better access to credit markets in the future.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22170.pdf

The results of this study are intuitive. Low-income individuals who obtain Medicaid insurance coverage not only are protected from medical bills when they must access health care, they also have a reduction in other unpaid bills and a lower incidence of account referral to collection agencies – a benefit to both the patients and their potential third-party creditors.

The authors state, “The financial protection provided by health insurance is arguably its most important function. This is particularly true in the case of Medicaid because of the relatively high prevalence of disease among low-income individuals and the substantial financial burden that illness imposes on those who become seriously ill or injured.”

Individuals who face large deductibles and other cost sharing in individual plans and employer-sponsored plans or who have inadequate subsidies for cost sharing in the ACA exchange plans are frequently exposed to financial hardship. It is the near absence of cost sharing (deductibles, copayments and coinsurance) in the Medicaid program that has made it so effective in protecting the personal finances of otherwise vulnerable individuals – in sharp contrast to the increasing financial burdens resulting from the inadequacies of the private plans.

Medicaid does have other problems. Too many physicians refuse to accept Medicaid patients because of the very low payment rates, especially specialists, thus access may be impaired. Also many states are shoving patients into Medicaid managed care plans to save even more money, and early experience suggests that there is a further deterioration in patient access and service. Thus merely expanding Medicaid is not a satisfactory solution to filling in our voids in health care today.

The lesson from this study is not that Medicaid should be expanded but rather that health insurance should provide complete financial protection from health care costs. That is proposed as one of the more important improvements in an Improved Medicare for All – a single payer national health program. Everyone could have health care without causing financial hardship for anyone. Costs would be controlled in a more patient-friendly manner by application of other important single payer policies.

Payments for cost sharing increasing rapidly over time

By Gary Claxton, Larry Levitt, Michelle Long
Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker, April 12, 2016

Rising cost-sharing for people with health insurance has drawn a good deal of public attention in recent years.  For example, the average deductible for people with employer-provided health coverage rose from $303 to $1,077 between 2006 and 2015.

To look at what workers and their families actually spend out-of-pocket for services covered by their employer-sponsored plan, we analyzed a sample of health benefit claims from the Truven MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database to calculate the average amounts paid toward deductibles, copayments and coinsurance.

From 2004 to 2014, the average payments by enrollees towards deductibles rose 256% from $99 to $353, and the average payments towards coinsurance rose 107%, from $117 to $242, while average payments for copays fell by 26%, from $206 to $152.  Overall, patient cost-sharing rose by 77%, from an average of $422 in 2004 to $747 in 2014. During that period, average payments by health plans rose 58%, from $2,748 to $4,354. This reflects a modest decline in the average generosity of insurance – large employer plans covered 86.7% of covered medical expenses on average in 2004, decreasing to 85.3% in 2014. Worker’s wages, meanwhile, rose by 32% from 2004 to 2014.

Individuals in the top 15 percent of health spenders (who together account for 74.8% of total health benefit costs for the sample), had substantially higher out-of-pocket costs, averaging $2,679 in 2014, including $1,249 in coinsurance payments, $928 in deductible spending, and $502 in copays.

As of 2014, 5.5% of all enrollees had deductible payments that exceeded $1,500 and 7.8% had overall cost-sharing payments that exceeded $2,500.

A limitation of these data is that they reflect cost sharing incurred under the benefit plan and do not include balance-billing payments that beneficiaries may make to health care providers for out-of-network services or out-of-pocket payments for non-covered services.

While average payments towards deductibles are still relatively low in the context of total household budgets, they have increased quite rapidly. Deductibles are the most visible element of an insurance plan to patients, which may help explain why consumers are showing concern about their out-of-pocket costs for care. Although health insurance coverage continues to pay a large share of the cost of covered benefits, patients in large employer plans are paying a greater share of their medical expenses out-of-pocket. And, while health care spending has been growing at fairly modest rates in recent years, the growth in out-of-pocket costs comes at a time when wages have been largely stagnant.

http://www.healthsystemtracker.org/insight/payments-for-cost-sharing-increasing-rapidly-over-time/

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

This is yet one more study that shows that deductibles and coinsurance are increasing quite rapidly in employer-sponsored health plans – plans that have been protected and encouraged by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as they are the most common source of health care coverage in the United States. This increase in cost sharing is causing financial hardship, especially for those who have greater health care needs.

Avid supporters of ACA say that all we have to do is build on the system we have. Yet instead coverage is deteriorating, and insurers certainly show no inclination towards filling in the gaps at the cost of driving premiums further up into unaffordable ranges.

It will get worse since insurance innovations are designed to slow spending increases by directly or indirectly shifting more costs to the patients.

Under a well designed single payer system costs can be controlled without resorting to financial penalties for using care. How hot does the cauldron we are in have to get before we’re ready to jump out and go to Medicare for All?

Payments for cost sharing increasing rapidly over time

By Gary Claxton, Larry Levitt, Michelle Long
Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker, April 12, 2016

Rising cost-sharing for people with health insurance has drawn a good deal of public attention in recent years.  For example, the average deductible for people with employer-provided health coverage rose from $303 to $1,077 between 2006 and 2015.

To look at what workers and their families actually spend out-of-pocket for services covered by their employer-sponsored plan, we analyzed a sample of health benefit claims from the Truven MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database to calculate the average amounts paid toward deductibles, copayments and coinsurance.

From 2004 to 2014, the average payments by enrollees towards deductibles rose 256% from $99 to $353, and the average payments towards coinsurance rose 107%, from $117 to $242, while average payments for copays fell by 26%, from $206 to $152.  Overall, patient cost-sharing rose by 77%, from an average of $422 in 2004 to $747 in 2014. During that period, average payments by health plans rose 58%, from $2,748 to $4,354. This reflects a modest decline in the average generosity of insurance – large employer plans covered 86.7% of covered medical expenses on average in 2004, decreasing to 85.3% in 2014. Worker’s wages, meanwhile, rose by 32% from 2004 to 2014.

Individuals in the top 15 percent of health spenders (who together account for 74.8% of total health benefit costs for the sample), had substantially higher out-of-pocket costs, averaging $2,679 in 2014, including $1,249 in coinsurance payments, $928 in deductible spending, and $502 in copays.

As of 2014, 5.5% of all enrollees had deductible payments that exceeded $1,500 and 7.8% had overall cost-sharing payments that exceeded $2,500.

A limitation of these data is that they reflect cost sharing incurred under the benefit plan and do not include balance-billing payments that beneficiaries may make to health care providers for out-of-network services or out-of-pocket payments for non-covered services.

While average payments towards deductibles are still relatively low in the context of total household budgets, they have increased quite rapidly. Deductibles are the most visible element of an insurance plan to patients, which may help explain why consumers are showing concern about their out-of-pocket costs for care. Although health insurance coverage continues to pay a large share of the cost of covered benefits, patients in large employer plans are paying a greater share of their medical expenses out-of-pocket. And, while health care spending has been growing at fairly modest rates in recent years, the growth in out-of-pocket costs comes at a time when wages have been largely stagnant.

http://www.healthsystemtracker.org/insight/payments-for-cost-sharing-increasing-rapidly-over-time/

This is yet one more study that shows that deductibles and coinsurance are increasing quite rapidly in employer-sponsored health plans – plans that have been protected and encouraged by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as they are the most common source of health care coverage in the United States. This increase in cost sharing is causing financial hardship, especially for those who have greater health care needs.

Avid supporters of ACA say that all we have to do is build on the system we have. Yet instead coverage is deteriorating, and insurers certainly show no inclination towards filling in the gaps at the cost of driving premiums further up into unaffordable ranges.

It will get worse since insurance innovations are designed to slow spending increases by directly or indirectly shifting more costs to the patients.

Under a well designed single payer system costs can be controlled without resorting to financial penalties for using care. How hot does the cauldron we are in have to get before we’re ready to jump out and go to Medicare for All?