By Peter Muennig, Bhaven Sampat, Nicholas Tilipman, Lawrence D. Brown and Sherry A. Glied
Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, October 2011
Abstract
The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148), or ACA, requires that U.S. citizens either purchase health insurance or pay a fine. To offset the financial burden for lower-income households, it also provides subsidies to ensure that health insurance premiums are affordable. However, relatively little work has been done on how such affordability standards should be set. The existing literature on affordability is not grounded in social norms and has methodological and theoretical flaws. To address these issues, we developed a series of hypothetical vignettes in which individual and household sociodemographic characteristics were varied. We then convened a panel of eighteen experts with extensive experience in affordability standards to evaluate the extent to which each vignette character could afford to pay for one of two health insurance plans. The panel varied with respect to political ideology and discipline. We find that there was considerable disagreement about how affordability is defined. There was also disagreement about what might be included in an affordability standard, with substantive debate surrounding whether savings, debt, education, or single parenthood is relevant. There was also substantial variation in experts’ assessed affordability scores. Nevertheless, median expert affordability assessments were not far from those of ACA.
In-Person Discussion
The discussion started in earnest with a review of the vignettes, beginning with Sarah (age 25, single, no children, college graduate, working for a non-profit), a vignette character who earns $1,610 per month, just under 200 percent of the FPL. In the case of characters with very low earnings, such as Sarah, there was considerable agreement among the panelists. All but one of the experts thought that she should pay something for health insurance, and all agreed that it should be very little.
The discussion heated up when participants considered Jessica, who earns $2,210 per month (age 25, single, no children, lives in Chicago, and pays rent of $1160 monthly). Here it was revealed that some participants interpreted affordability as what the person should pay and others as what they could pay. This provided a jumping-off point to a broader discussion of what affordability means.
One participant suggested that Jessica could “literally” afford $800 per month, and denounced affordability as “a lousy policy where you impoverish people so they can buy a minimal set of other goods after they end up paying for health insurance.” Another respondent who also gave a very high affordability threshold noted, “I’m not saying it would be worth it for her to pay this much, but she could still manage reasonably well if she [did] . . . so.” Many others disagreed with this literal interpretation, noting, “I donāt think literal affordability is an interesting policy.” One respondent described affordability as “asking really, ‘How much could one reasonably pay for health insurance.'” Several others argued that a policy would be affordable for beneficiaries if there would “be no adverse consequences by pushing them to that limit.”
One participant, who argued that the standard should be $100 to $150, said, “I’m a low-ball guy because [I take into account] the real costs of living, the fact that the poverty line is too low, etc.”
Conclusion
There is not a natural, objective standard of affordable health insurance coverage. Of course this is true for most (if not all) policies that require government subsidies. Reasonable people disagree about how much a given household can be expected to put aside to spend on health insurance and health care. That there is considerable disagreement even among distinguished experts in social policy on this issue suggests that the concept is mainly a subjective one and that any specific affordability threshold or subsidy structure is likely to be contentious and contested. In this area, as with many others, even highly qualified experts are unlikely to provide scientific answers to guide policy.
http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/36/5/829.full.pdf+html
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
This study was designed to demonstrate what well qualified policy experts, from across the political and academic spectra, would conclude should be the standard for determining affordability of health insurance premiums. So what is that standard?
After analyzing a great many vignettes, each expert then devised their own rules of thumb for determining appropriate premium contributions. Although the rules were quite varied, the mean calculations for premium contributions were close to those specified in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Does this mean that members of Congress and their staffs were quite astute in their calculations of premium subsidies for the exchange plans?
Although the mean calculations were close to those of ACA, there was a very wide variation in the experts’ assessed affordability scores. In the vignette for “Jessica” ($2210 per month income with a Chicago rent of $1160, leaving $1050 for all of her expenses other than rent), expert estimates of affordable health insurance premiums ranged from $100 or $150 per month up to $800 per month. At $800 per month, that leaves $250 for all expenses other than rent and health insurance (e.g., food, clothing, utilities, transportation, education expenses, retirement fund, and “luxuries” such as a cellphone, TV, vacations, holiday gifts, etc.). That $250 must also cover out-of-pocket medical expenses such as deductibles, copayments, and out-of-network services. Even the “low-ball” estimate leaves only $900 to $950 per month for everything beyond rent and health insurance.
The fundamental defect here is that we keep trying to match payment for a specified package of medical benefits to the incomes of specific individuals. Since a reasonable package is no longer affordable by median-income individuals, some form of subsidization is required for the majority of us. Yet recognized experts in the policy community have very different concepts as to how much and in what form the subsidies should be.
Averaging these wide ranges of opinions on how much each person should pay is not a satisfactory solution since the averages or medians place too much of the burden of health care costs on those with modest incomes. These averages also would not satisfy those dispassionate experts who believe that individuals should pay dearly for their health insurance and health care, so they won’t waste their money on things like flat-screen TVs (or really, “wasting” it on healthier foods, transportation to their employment, 401k plans, and so forth).
Financing health care and providing health benefits need to be totally separated. The correlation between ability to pay and medical need is negative, not positive. Payments based on ability to pay should be made into a common risk pool covering everyone, most easily accomplished through the tax system. Health care benefits should be provided to everyone out of that risk pool based on medical need. That is sort of the way Medicare works now for selected populations, but it could be improved.
That sounds like a good idea. Let’s improve Medicare and then provide it for everyone.