4

Click here to load reader

Health Reform Brief President: 7.1 Million Enrolled In ... New York’s health-care exchange and ... Medicaid participants. ... as well as addressing regulatory compliance challenges

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Health Reform Brief President: 7.1 Million Enrolled In ... New York’s health-care exchange and ... Medicaid participants. ... as well as addressing regulatory compliance challenges

April 2014

Health Reform Brief

President: 7.1 Million Enrolled In

Obamacare p.1

Obamacare Allies Are Already Plotting How

To Make 2015 Enrollment Better p. 1

Enrollment In NY Health Exchange Soars

p.2

No Longer An Albatross? After Obamacare,

Uninsured Rate At Lowest Level Since 2008

p.2

Co-op Health Insurance Plans See Early

Success p.2

Blue Cross Says ‘80-85’ Percent Of

Obamacare Enrollees Are Paying p.2

PPACA Legislation and

Guidance

Majority of New Medicaid Beneficiaries Live

In 10 States p.3

CMS Eliminates Proposed Medicare

Advantage Cuts For 2015 p.3

Sebelius Out, Obama Nominates New

Health Secretary p.3

NY Health Commissioner Steps Down For

CA Job p.3

President: 7.1 Million Enrolled In Obamacare

President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that 7.1 million

people had enrolled in insurance plans sold on government-run

exchanges by the close of Monday's sign-up deadline, just

beating the original estimate officials made last summer.

"This law is doing what it's supposed to do, it's working,"

Obama said in remarks outside the White House, where he was

met with sustained applause and cheers after announcing the

tally, which he repeated several times, as if to savor the number.

Source: CNBC

Obamacare Allies Are Already Plotting How To Make

2015 Enrollment Better

Today's a pretty good day for Obamacare advocates after the

news that 7 million people signed up for exchange coverage by

yesterday's deadline. But they’re already thinking about how to

improve open enrollment for 2015 health plans, which is sched-

uled to start Nov. 15.

As a reminder, the 2014 open enrollment period isn’t technically

over. The feds and state-run exchanges are making accommo-

dations for people who had trouble signing up before the

March 31 deadline.

Source: The Washington Post

Page 2: Health Reform Brief President: 7.1 Million Enrolled In ... New York’s health-care exchange and ... Medicaid participants. ... as well as addressing regulatory compliance challenges

Co-op Health Insurance Plans See Early

Success

The names of the big health insurance companies

are familiar – Blue Cross, Aetna, United

Healthcare. But what about CoOportunity Health,

or Health Republic Insurance of New York? These

are among 23 new health insurance companies

that started under the Affordable Care Act. They're

all nonprofit, member-owned cooperatives, and

the aim is to create more competition and drive

prices down.

Funded almost entirely by federal government

loans this year, initial enrollment numbers look

pretty good for a lot of co-ops, but that’s not nec-

essarily enough to make them successful.

Source: Kaiser Health News

Blue Cross Says ‘80-85’ Percent Of Obamac-

Are Enrollees Are Paying

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, which

represents the nation’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield

plans, says “80-85″ percent of newly enrolled indi-

viduals buying plans under the Affordable Care Act

are paying their premiums.

The figure was confirmed by Forbes this morning

and is slated to be announced later today by the

Chicago-based trade association for the nation’s

Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. The results, which

confirm from a survey of most Blue Cross partici-

pating on exchanges, are as of Feb. 1.

Source: Forbes

Health Reform

Brief

Enrollment In NY Health Exchange Soars

More than 908,500 residents have fully enrolled

in New York’s health-care exchange and more

than 1.2 million residents have complet-

ed applications since Oct. 1, the state Health De-

partment said Monday.

The enrollment deadline was March 31, but resi-

dents who began the steps to apply for coverage

before March 31 and were unable to complete

the enrollment process will be allowed to apply

through April 15. In the last week alone, 43,085

residents have fully enrolled for coverage, the

health department said.

Source: Star Gazette

No Longer An Albatross? After Obamac-are, Uninsured Rate At Lowest Level Since 2008

President Barack Obama and his Democratic col-

leagues may have scored a political victory with

the new health care law. After the law's introduc-

tion, the uninsured rate has now fallen to the

lowest level since 2008.

Data released on Monday in the Gallup-

Healthways Well-Being Index showed that

roughly 3.5 million more people with health in-

surance coverage.

Source: International Business Times

Page 3: Health Reform Brief President: 7.1 Million Enrolled In ... New York’s health-care exchange and ... Medicaid participants. ... as well as addressing regulatory compliance challenges

Sebelius Out, Obama Nominates New Health Secretary

President Barack Obama announced Friday that he

will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who cur-

rently directs the White House budget office, to be

the next health secretary, the Cabinet official who's

ultimately responsible for overseeing Obamacare.

Obama praised the outgoing secretary, Kathleen

Sebelius, saying at a Rose Garden ceremony that

she would "go down in history" for serving when

the United States "finally declared that quality, af-

fordable health care" would be a right for every

U.S. citizen.

Her departure is not without controversy although

her tenure will conclude more positively with the

Obama administration riding high over the initial

enrollment success of the politically charged

health law.

Source: CNN

NY Health Commissioner Steps Down For CA Job

The Obama administration announced Wednesday

that it has rewritten an array of far-reaching rules

under the Affordable Care Act, the most significant

of which will let people keep bare-bones health

insurance policies for three more years.

The rule changes will touch essentially every sector

affected by the 2010 health-care law. It will buffer

more health plans in insurance exchanges from

high patient costs, give states more time to decide

whether to run their own marketplaces, and spare

certain unions from a fee they have resented.

Source: The Washington Times

Majority of New Medicaid Beneficiaries Live In 10 States

Ten states accounted for more than 80% of the

three million new enrollees in Medicaid who signed

up under the Affordable Care Act- California, Colo-

rado, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts,

New York; Oregon, Washington, and West Virginia.

Of those 10 states, four -- California, Florida, Ore-

gon and Washington -- enrolled the most new

Medicaid participants. In addition, Florida is the

only state that has not expanded its Medicaid pro-

gram under the ACA; it reported enrolling more

than 100,000 new beneficiaries.

Source: California HealthLine

CMS Eliminates Proposed Medicare Ad-vantage Cuts For 2015 On Monday, CMS announced that payments to

Medicare Advantage plans in 2015 will increase by

0.4%, reversing its earlier proposal that would have

cut the reimbursements. The proposed cuts were

unveiled in February in a 148-page assessment of

cost factors for MA plans for 2015, which noted

multiple variables moving in different directions.

Analysts estimated the variables would translate to

a 1.9% cut to MA plan payments.

Source: California Healthline

PPACA Legislation and

Guidance

Page 4: Health Reform Brief President: 7.1 Million Enrolled In ... New York’s health-care exchange and ... Medicaid participants. ... as well as addressing regulatory compliance challenges

Upcoming Events

About Softheon

Empowering the nation's first state health benefit exchange since 2008, Softheon's vision and strategic

direction address healthcare payer, provider, and government agencies’ goal of meeting Affordable

Care Act (ACA) milestones. Softheon provides solutions for interacting with Federal and State Health

Insurance Exchange (HIX) Marketplaces, while measurably reducing administrative costs, improving

member and provider satisfaction, as well as addressing regulatory compliance challenges in all man-

aged care administrative processes.

Softheon's Marketplace Connector Cloud (MC2) has been trusted by over 38 health plans as an acceler-

ated federal, state, and private exchange integration platform. Softheon MC2 is a Software-as-a-Service

(SaaS) solution where insurers pay a one-time activation and ongoing PMPM fees for exchange mem-

bers only, while eliminating most, if not all, risks associated with ACA compliance of 2014 enrollment

and other mandates.

To find out more about the Softheon, visit www.softheon.com.