In some states, like California, insurers reject applicants with past medical problems. In others, like New York, insurers can’t reject applicants, and must offer similar coverage regardless of personal medical history (“community rating”);NY Times
Obamacare closes this gap with a three-part approach. First, community rating everywhere — no more exclusion based on pre-existing conditions.You repeat this, which means the first time was not a slip, just ignorance.
Well, the California bids are in — that is, insurers have submitted the prices at which they are willing to offer coverage on the state’s newly created Obamacare exchange. And the prices, it turns out, are surprisingly low.Define surprisingly low.
People who want UCLA Medical Center and its doctors in their health plan network next year, for instance, may have only one choice in California’s exchange: Anthem Blue Cross. Another major insurer in the state-run market, Blue Shield of California, said its exchange customers will be restricted to 36% of its regular physician network statewide.And Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, one of Southern California’s most prestigious and expensive hospitals, said it’s not included in any exchange plans at the moment.
PPACA drafters created the ERRP system, to encourage employers to keep health plans for retirees ages 55 to 64 in place. Congress provided $5 billion in funding for early retiree health plan subsidies. ERRP managers were supposed to use $300 million of the allocation for administrative expenses and $4.7 billion for employer plan reimbursement claims.
Congress also provided $5 billion in funding for PCIP (pronounced "P-sip").
PCIP was supposed to provide health coverage for uninsured people with serious health problems who could not qualify to buy private health coverage. PCIP enrollees are supposed to pay premiums comparable to what healthy people in their states pay for individual commercial coverage.
Although ERRP funding was supposed to last until the end of 2013, program managers at CCIIO had to suspend enrollment in the program by May 2011 because expenses were running so high, Czerwinski said.
ERRP managers ran out of the $4.7 billion in funding for ERRP claims in September 2012, and, at that time, they had 5,699 open claims for reimbursement.
The employers that submitted the reimbursement claims have asked for a total of $2.5 billion in payments, Czerwinski said.
Before PCIP started up, Medicare actuaries predicted that the program would have 375,000 enrollees by the end of 2010.
Actual enrollment was only about 49,000 at the end of 2011, and it increased to about 103,000 at the end of December 2012, Czerwinski said.
The 72,600,000 enrolled in Medicaid in the United States in 2012 was more than the 65,630,692 people who lived in France last year, according to data published by the Census Bureau, or the 63,047,162 people who lived in the United Kingdom.
In fact, if Medicaid was a country rather than a U.S. government program it would be the twentieth most populous nation in the world, ranking just ahead of Thailand, which had 67,091,089 people in 2012, and just behind the Congo, which had 73,599,190 people in 2012.
In fiscal 2008, the last full year before President Barack Obama took office, there were 58,794,000 Medicaid enrollees. Since then, Medicaid enrollment has expanded by more than 23 percent.
