Obamacare News of the Day

NPR: Nearly Half of Californians Who Used Exchange May Drop Coverage

• Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center estimate that about 20 percent of Covered California enrollees are expected to leave the program because they found a job that offers health insurance. Another 20 percent will see their incomes fall and will become eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's insurance program for people who have low incomes.
• In addition to the 40 percent of enrollees who move to Medi-Cal or job-based insurance, between 2 and 8 percent of those who sign up for Covered California are expected to become uninsured, the analysis noted.
• Between 53 and 58 percent of Covered California enrollees are expected to stay in a Covered California plan for 12 months, the report says. The exchange said that more than 1.2 million people had signed up for health coverage by the March 31 deadline.
• …in any three-month period, an estimated 10 percent of enrollees could be expected to leave Covered California, although he says that indeed some may leave the exchange "because the cost was too high."

The Hill: Dems ask Obama to stop health cuts [you may recall Democrats voted for Obamacare to enact these cuts]

• Several Democrats took to the House floor Thursday night to call on the Obama administration not to cut Medicare Advantage payment rates.
• The Democratic speeches opposing Obama are a turnaround from the usual fare in the House, which routinely sees Republicans stand up to oppose the implementation of ObamaCare. But pending cuts to the Medicare Advantage program proposed by the administration in February are opposed by many Democrats, and the cuts threaten to play into the midterm elections this year.
• "They will mean fewer benefits, fewer doctors and less choice," Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.) said. "This is wrong, and we cannot let it happen.
• [RELATED] Conservative Intelligence Briefing: Obamacare and how Democrats lost the senior citizen vote
• “Not only did my premium go up,” this 91-year-old New York gentleman notes, “but my coverage went down.”  

Washington Examiner: Seven unanswered questions about Obamacare

• How many young and healthy people signed up?
• How many have paid their premiums?
  • [RELATED] Washington Post: Why would a person sign up for Obamacare but not pay the premium?
    • By now, you’ve probably heard that 7.1 million people have signed up for coverage in Obamacare’s health insurance marketplaces. That doesn’t tell us the actual enrollment number, though, because people need to pay their premium to officially get coverage. [some examples offered by Kaiser Family Foundation insurance expert Larry Levitt]
    • Someone might have also pursued off-exchange coverage
    • An offer of employment insurance after signing up
    • Decided it wasn’t affordable
    • No browsing function for health plans in HealthCare.gov’s early days
    • The way the process is divided between the exchange and the insurer
    • People may still eventually pay the premium
• How many enrollees are subsidized by the government?
• How many of the nation’s 30 million previously uninsured are now covered?
• How many who lost coverage because of Obamacare regulations signed up for new policies?
• How much will health insurance premiums go up?
• Will taxpayers have to bail out insurers?

Bloomberg Businessweek: Health insurance isn't a year-round thing anymore

• Here's more fallout from the health care law: Until now, customers could walk into an insurance office or go online to buy standard health care coverage any time of year. Not anymore.
• Many people who didn't sign up during the government's open enrollment period that ended Monday will soon find it difficult or impossible to get insured this year, even if they go directly to a private company and money is no object. For some it's already too late.
• "I have people that can buy insurance, but the companies shut them down. They won't take the applications," insurance broker Steve Bobiak of Frackville, Pa., said. "We're a free country. You should be able to buy anything anytime you want."
• The federal law doesn't prevent companies from selling policies to everyone all year. But insurers consider it too risky now that the law prohibits them from rejecting people in poor health.
• A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation in mid-March found that 6 out of 10 people without insurance weren't aware of the marketplace deadline on March 31.

The Hill: Gibbs [former WH Press Secretary]: Employer mandate won't happen

• “I don’t think the employer mandate will go into effect. It’s a small part of the law. I think it will be one of the first things to go,” Gibbs told a crowd in Colorado…

New York Times: State Officials Cite Technology Problems on Health Insurance Sites

• Officials from five states, on the defensive at a congressional hearing, said Thursday that their health insurance exchanges had been hobbled by technology problems like those that bedeviled the federal marketplace. But they said their states were recovering.
• The states — Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oregon — all have Democratic governors who support the Affordable Care Act. They built their own exchanges with millions of dollars of federal money, but many residents in all five states were frustrated as they tried to enroll online last fall.