This afternoon, the Congressional Budget Office released their 10-year "score" report of the largest single chunk of the House Democrats version of the American Rescue Plan from the Ways & Means Committee:
Legislation Summary
S. Con. Res. 5, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021, instructed several committees of the House of Representatives to recommend legislative changes that would increase deficits up to a specified amount over the 2021-2030 period. As part of this reconciliation process, the House Committee on Ways and Means approved legislation on February 10 and 11, 2021, with a number of provisions that would increase deficits. The legislation would extend unemployment benefits, establish a pandemic emergency fund, increase subsidies for health insurance, provide cash payments to eligible people, expand several tax credits, and modify rules for pensions, among other provisions designed to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the coronavirus.
Health Insurer Aetna Inc on Wednesday said it plans to continue its Obamacare health insurance business next year in the 15 states where it now participates, and may expand to a few additional states.
"We have submitted rates in all 15 states where we are participating and have no plans at this point to withdraw from any of them," said company spokesman Walt Cherniak. But he noted that a final determination would hinge on binding agreements being signed with the states in September.
Aetna sells the individual coverage on exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare. By also filing proposed rates in several other states, Aetna said it had preserved its options to participate in them as well next year. It declined to identify the potential new markets.
The 15 states where it currently participates are Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
Special Enrollment Period through Nevada Health Link begins February 15
Uninsured Nevadans will have 90 more days to enroll in a qualified health plan for 2021 coverage
Nevada Health Link, the online health insurance marketplace operated by the state agency, the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange (Exchange), begins its 90-day Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for uninsured Nevadans, starting February 15 through May 15, 2021. The SEP is in accordance with the Executive Order issued by President Biden last month, in response to the ongoing national health emergency presented by COVID-19.
Those who've only started visiting my blog or following me on Twitter recently may be under the impression that I know everything there is to know about the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, simply because I never shut up about it.
Those who've been following my work since I launched the site know the truth: Until October 2013, I didn't know that much more about the ACA than the average person.
Don't get me wrong: I had been following the ACA saga since the 2008 Democratic primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and was watching the legislative progress grind along throughout 2009 - 2010...but I was doing so mostly from a distance. I didn't have a deep understanding of the details of either the legislation or the political process happening behind the scenes.
(sigh) After seven years of doing this, you'd think I'd know better: I double-checked the Your Health Idaho website as recently as this morning and saw no announcement of a COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period...and yet look what just showed up in my inbox an hour ago...
Your Health Idaho Announces Special Enrollment Period for Uninsured Idahoans
Idaho’s Health Insurance Marketplace will Reopen March 1
BOISE, Idaho – Your Health Idaho announced today that a Special Enrollment Period will be established from March 1 to March 31. During this time, any eligible uninsured Idahoan can sign up for health insurance coverage.
“As we approach the one-year mark of COVID-19 in Idaho, too many Idahoans are still uninsured and in need of coverage,” said Your Health Idaho Executive Director, Pat Kelly. “Reopening the marketplace and providing Idahoans with a path to comprehensive health insurance is simply the right thing to do.”
With this announcement, Your Health Idaho joins all state-based marketplaces and the federal marketplace in offering a Special Enrollment Period as the effects of the pandemic continue to be felt across the country.
When President Biden announced that HealthCare.Gov would be re-launching an extended Special Enrollment Period in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I wasn't surprised at all; in fact, I would have been shocked if he hadn't ordered the HHS Dept. to do so. I was surprised by how long the new COVID Enrollment Period would be: A full 3 months (I had been expecting either 30, 45 or perhaps 60 days at the outside).
I've done my best to label every state/territory, which obviously isn't easy to do for most of them given how tangled it gets in the middle. For cases per capita, the most obvious point is that New York and New Jersey, which towered over every other state last spring, are now utterly dwarfed by North & South Dakota, although things are getting pretty horrible everywhere now.
1 out of every 8 residents of North & South Dakota's entire populations have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past year.
Rhode Island is up to over 1 out of every 9 residents.
Utah, Tennessee, Arizona,Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas and Nebraska are up to 1 out of every 10 residents.
41 states have seen at least 1 out of every 15 residents test positive.
EVERY state except Washington, Oregon, Maine, Hawaii & Vermont (along with 4 U.S. territories) have now surpassed 1 out of every 20 residents having tested positive.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which comes from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
I've made some more changes:
Every county except those in Alaska lists the 2020 Biden/Trump partisan lean; Alaska still uses the 2016 Clinton/Trump results. I define a "Swing District" as one where the difference between Biden & Trump was less than 6.0%. FWIW, there's just 188 swing districts (out of over 3,100 total), with around 33.8 million Americans out of 332 million total, or roughly 10.2% of the U.S. population.
For the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico only includes the case breakout, not deaths, which are unavailable by county equivalent for some reason.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Friday, February 12th, 2021 (click image for high-res version).
Blue = Joe Biden won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trumpwon by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
