- As healthcare law rolls out, its effects will depend on your state, By Noam N. Levey, September 6, 2013, Los Angeles Times: “Colorado residents shopping for health insurance next year will be able to compare health plans using a star system that ranks insurance companies on quality. In Oregon and Maryland, consumers will save as much as 30% on some plans after state regulators forced insurers to lower 2014 premiums. Californians will get extra help selecting a health plan next year from a small army of community workers paid in part by foundations and the state. As President Obama’s healthcare law rolls out next month, even supporters acknowledge there will be problems. But Americans who live in states backing the Affordable Care Act will receive substantial protections and assistance unavailable to residents in states still fighting the 2010 law…”
- Law will shift demographics for Medicaid toward healthier group, study finds, By Ankita Rao, September 9, 2013, Washington Post: “The health law is expected to change the face of Medicaid – literally. As part of the federal overhaul, some states have opted to expand in January this state-federal health insurance program for low income people to include Americans who earn as much as 138 percent of the federal poverty line (just under $16,000 for an individual in 2013). As a result, the new enrollees will include more white, male and healthy individuals than those eligible before the Affordable Care Act expansion, according to a study in the Annals of Family Medicine…”
- Corbett weighing Medicaid expansion if tied to changes, By Don Sapatkin, September 11, 2013, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Gov. Corbett is considering an expansion of Medicaid to cover hundreds of thousands of uninsured residents if he can also win significant changes to the existing part of the entitlement program, which otherwise would continue in its current form. Linking the two issues – a Medicaid expansion envisioned by the Affordable Care Act and money-saving changes in a program that he considers unsustainable – could achieve goals sought by liberals and conservatives. But it will require a delicate balancing act with both parties in Harrisburg as well as the Obama administration…”
- Lack of Medicaid expansion puts some Floridians in new donut hole, By Marni Jameson, September 13, 2013, Orlando Sentinel: “Nearly 1 million Floridians will fall through a large donut hole next month when the health insurance exchange — a key element in the Affordable Care Act — opens. The unintended coverage gap in the new health-care law will put a large group of uninsured residents right in the middle — not earning enough to qualify for tax credits available through the exchange, but earning too much to qualify for Medicaid…”
Day: September 13, 2013
Medicaid Enrollment – Buffalo, NY
Erie County’s Medicaid data shows poverty existing ‘everywhere’, By Harold McNeil, September 13, 2013, Buffalo News: “Medicaid, the largest single cost in Erie County’s operating budget, is no longer just an urban expense, according to a report released Thursday by the Medicaid inspector general for the county. The report shows that a majority of the county’s Medicaid recipients reside in the city but that increasing numbers of people who rely on the program can be found in virtually all of Buffalo’s first-ring suburbs, including Cheektowaga, Amherst, Hamburg and West Seneca…”