COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The White House this morning is rolling out a new Web site, HealthCare.gov,
which is designed to help health insurance consumers navigate the new
landscape when the new marketplace of exchanges starts on October 1st.

Since Arizona opted not to set up its own insurance exchange, the federal government will do it for us. The HealthCare.gov web site is the place for you to get information.

Sarah Kliff at Ezra Klein's Wonkblog writes today, Obamacare starts in 99 days. These 99 things need to happen before then:

Obamacare hit a pretty important milestone this weekend: The law is now
100 days away from its main provisions coming into effect. That means
the administration is pretty much in an all-out sprint to set up an
infrastructure by which millions of Americans will soon purchase
insurance coverage.

It will be orchestrating the largest expansion of private health
insurance in the country’s history. That means there’s a huge amount of
work to be done over the next few months. There are at least 99 things
that need to happen between now and October, and I’ve got a list to
prove it. Much of this is informed by the Government Accountability Office report
that came out last week, on the next big steps that need to happen on
health exchanges. Some are big, some are small but all are pretty
necessary to making the law work.

Here they are:

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Further evidence today that the Tan Man, Weeper of the House John Boehner, is the "Worst. Speaker. Ever." His comical sidekick Eric Cantor is no better.

The GOP drafted farm bill — which in actuality is about 80% funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps — failed to pass the Tea-Publican controlled House today, despite the fact that this is a Tea-Publican drafted bill with punitive cuts of $2 billion annually from the food stamps program and it permitted states to impose broad new work requirements on those who receive food stamps to punish those "takers" in the 47 percent.

And why did this happen? Because for many Tea-Publicans the measure was not punitive enough. In their dark hearts, they would like to make it a crime to be a member of the working poor.

Talking Points Memo reports, House GOP Fails To Pass Farm Bill, Welfare Cuts:

The House has rejected a five year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill
that would have cut $2 billion annually from food stamps and let states
impose broad new work requirements on those who receive them.

Those cuts weren’t deep enough for many Republicans who
objected to the cost of the nearly $80 billion-a-year program, which has
doubled in the past five years. The vote was 234-195 against the bill,
with 62 Republicans voting against it.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

More good news on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka "ObamaCare") — it is bending the cost curve on healthcare costs, just as it was designed to do, which also bends the curve on federal deficits.

The latest good news come from the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals, and PwC’s Health Research Institute.
Both argue in new studies out today that a big chunk of the slowdown is
structural — and won’t disappear as the economy improves. Why
are health care costs rising more slowly?:

Dobson DaVanzo & Associates, in a report for the hospital group,
concludes that if present trends continue Medicare savings will be $1
trillion more in the next 10 years than the savings projected by the
Congressional Budget Office in May. The changes, Al Dobson said in an
interview, are the result of marketplace pressures and the Affordable
Care Act, which set new penalties for hospital readmissions, and
included bundled payments and other incentives for hospitals and doctors
to find ways to cut costs without hurting patients.

* * *

PwC  uses a medical cost trend–or growth rate–that measures the
changes in the cost to treat patients and is influenced by the cost of
products and services and utilization. The projection is based on
interviews with health plans, a survey of employers and other
data. They conclude that
health-care spending growth will dip to 6.5 percent next year, adding
that the slowing of health-care spending “defies historical
post-recession patterns and is likely to be sustained” even as millions
of uninsured Americans enter the health system next year.