The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing today that more than 59 million Americans with Medicare Part B, including those enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, now have access to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, authorized, or cleared over-the-counter COVID-19 tests at no cost. People with Medicare can get up to eight tests per calendar month from participating pharmacies and health care providers for the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing that, beginning today, as many as 720,000 pregnant and postpartum people across the United States could be guaranteed Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage for a full 12 months after pregnancy thanks to the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Medicaid covers 42 percent of all births in the nation, and this new option for states to extend Medicaid and CHIP coverage marks the Biden-Harris Administration’s latest effort to address the nation’s crisis in pregnancy-related deaths and maternal morbidity by opening the door to postpartum care for hundreds of thousands of people.
Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2021-2030 National Health Expenditure (NHE) report, prepared by the CMS Office of the Actuary, that presents health spending and enrollment projections for the coming decade. The report notably shows that despite the increased demand for patient care in 2021, the growth in national health spending is estimated to have slowed to 4.2%, from 9.7% in 2020, as supplemental funding for public health activity and other federal programs, specifically those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, declined significantly.
As noted yesterday, it's the12th Anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA into law. To mark the occasion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final, official 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) report, which I've broken into multiple entries.
In this entry, I'm looking at the metal level breakout of the plans selected by ACA exchange enrollees. As a reminder, ACA policies fall into four categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, plus a special fifth "Catastrophic" category.
The 4 metal level categories represent policies which cover roughly 60%, 70%, 80% or 90% of the average enrollee's in-network healthcare expenses over the cours of the year. This doesn't mean that a Silver (70%) plan, for instance, will cover 70% of your specific medical expenses; it's an aggregate average.
As noted yesterday, it's the12th Anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA into law. To mark the occasion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final, official 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) report, which I've broken into multiple entries.
In this entry, I'm looking at enrollment from the angle of various demographic factors, including Age, Gender, Race/Ethnicity and Rural status.
There's a ton of data in the big table below (click the image for a high-res version), so I've also included percentage summaries at the bottom:
As noted yesterday, it's the12th Anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA into law. To mark the occasion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final, official 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) report, which I've broken into several entries.
This entry covers two types of ACA policies which don't get nearly enough attention. The first is the ACA's Basic Health Plan (BHP) program, which is currently only operating in two states: Minnesota and New York.
Under the ACA, most states have expanded Medicaid to people with income up to 138 percent of the poverty level. But people with incomes very close to the Medicaid eligibility cutoff frequently experience changes in income that result in switching from Medicaid to ACA’s qualified health plans (QHPs) and back. This “churning” creates fluctuating healthcare costs and premiums, and increased administrative work for the insureds, the QHP carriers and Medicaid programs.
As noted this morning, today marks the 12th Anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA into law. To mark the occasion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final, official 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) report, which I'll be breaking into several entries.
In this entry, I'm looking at the financial aid breakout for Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollees. ACA financial assistance falls into two categories: Advance Premium Tax Credits (APTC) and Cost Sharing Reductions (CSR). APTC reduces enrollees monthly premium costs; CSR reduces their deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket expenses.
Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, APTC financial assistance is far more generous for most enrollees in 2022 than in prior years, as you can see by looking at the 3rd & 4th columns (avg. premium and avg. premium after APTC):
As I just noted, today marks the 12th Anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA into law. To mark the occasion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final, official 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) report, which I'll be breaking into several entries.
In this entry, I'm looking at the weekly Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections by state and nationally. This first table shows the cumulative numbers for every week of OEP 2022. The final column includes additional enrollments after 1/15/22 in the states which had later deadlines, as well as some oddball clerical data corrections:
As I just noted, today marks the 12th Anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA into law. To mark the occasion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final, official 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) report, which I'll be breaking into several entries.
The next two tables look at the number of renewing enrollees who kept their existing (2021) ACA exchange policy vs. those who switched to a different policy for 2022. It's important to note that CMS only has data on this from the 33 states hosted on the federal exchange (HealthCare.Gov).
Of those, over 56% of renewing enrollees switched to a different policy (either through the same carrier or a different one). The other 44% either kept whatever policy they were enrolled in at the end of 2021 or were automatically switched to the closest equivalent in cases where that exact policy had been discontinued by the insurance carrier (this is known as being "crosswalked"):
As I just noted, today marks the 12th Anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA into law. To mark the occasion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final, official 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) report, which I'll be breaking into several entries.
First up is the top line numbers: Just how many people selected Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) during the 2022 OEP, which ran from November 1st, 2021 through different ending dates depending on the state. In the 33 states hosted via the federal ACA exchange (HealthCare.Gov), as well as 9 of the 18 state-based marketplaces (SBMs), the ending date was January 15th, 2022.
For the remaining SBMs, the ending date was: 12/22/21 in Idaho; 1/19/22 in Colorado; 1/28/22 in Massachusetts; 1/31/22 in DC, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York & Rhode Island; and 2/04/22 in California:
