"Repeal and replace" has been the rallying cry for Republicans since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010. But now that most of the law's provisions have taken effect, some health experts are pitching ways to improve it, rather than eliminate it. An ideologically diverse panel at the National Health Policy Conference Monday presented somewhat different lists of ideas to make the law work better. But they all agreed on one thing: The Affordable Care Act is too complicated. "We took the most complex health care system on God's green earth, and made it 10 times more complex," said Jon Kingsdale, the first head of the Massachusetts health exchange created under that state's forerunner to the ACA.
Weak security is being blamed for the mammoth hack of one of the nation's largest health insurance providers, which has put the private data of 80 million people at risk. Investigators are focused on weak security for login credentials, as the hackers are believed to have accessed Anthem Inc.'s information by stealing the company system administrator's access information. "Anthem's primary security sin may not have been the lack of encryption, but instead improper access controls," security researcher Ken Westin wrote in a blog post. Hackers were able to get the credentials of five different Anthem tech workers, the country's second-largest health insurer, The Associated Press reported Saturday.
The Obama administration said on Monday that 2015 Obamacare subsidies are averaging $268 a month for people in 37 states who have qualified for federal assistance to help with premiums through the website, HealthCare.gov. An administration statement, released less than a week before the Feb. 15 close of open enrollment for private health coverage, said subsidies had reduced average monthly premiums to $105 as of Jan. 30, for 6.5 million people who qualified through the federal website. About eight out of 10 people who chose health plans had premiums of $100 or less after subsidies, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said. Without subsidies, average Obamacare premiums available through HealthCare.gov stand at $374 a month.
There's taking a stand. Then there's taking a stand in quicksand. And that's where the Republican Party finds itself. After almost six years of gloom-and-dooming, every intellectually honest Republican has to admit Obamacare is making life better not only for individual Americans but for the country. It is saving tax dollars, beefing up American's monthly budget and setting the country on a path of ever-lowering deficits. Some experts are even claiming the law has improved the care in hospitals. There were plenty of reasons to suspect Obamacare might have been a colossal failure—although none of them had to do with death panels, huge lines for treatment, a government takeover of health care, etc.
In Obamacare's first year, 36 states defaulted to Healthcare.gov, the federally coordinated exchange. An estimated 87 percent of individuals who enrolled through the website are receiving subsidies - the precise subsidies that this court case calls into question. Without subsidies, private insurance become unaffordable for many people who have already enrolled. The judicial process is still playing out, but according to recent analysis from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this decision could affect over 7.3 million people expected to receive federal subsidies in 2016. If the plaintiffs prevail and subsidies are withdrawn, healthy people would drop their coverage, and only the people who are very sick - and therefore very expensive to insure - would keep their plans.
The Obama administration has hired 40 percent more people to help with healthcare sign-ups in the final week ahead of the 2015 deadline for enrolling in health insurance through ObamaCare. A total of 14,000 people are running call centers across the country starting Monday, when prospective enrollees will have less than a week to meet the Feb. 15 deadline. Officials in charge of HealthCare.gov said they have been planning for a last-minute swell of sign-ups, warning that the wait times for call centers have continued to increase as the clock winds down.