These are generally time-sensitive media-sources, collected here for our members’ and allies’ use.
CMS Office of the Actuary Releases 2017 National Health Expenditures
Overall national health spending grew at a rate of 3.9 percent in 2017, almost 1.0 percentage point slower than growth in 2016, according to a study conducted by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and published online today ahead of print by Health Affairs. Medicare spending grew at about the […]
FACT CHECK: Trump’s False Claims On ‘Medicare For All’
Source: WUNC.org ⇥
National Public Radio fact-checker Scott Horsely comments on an opinion column from President Trump, published by USA Today.
OP-ED Why doesn’t NC’s Opioid Action Plan consider MCD expansion?
Source: News & Observer's Letters to Editor ⇥
Our General Assembly’s decision to continually reject Medicaid expansion not only exacerbates the opioid epidemic and is detrimental for future generations, but it also means that we’re losing out on billions of federal dollars that can spur economic growth and job creation.
It’s time to put politics aside and come together for a real solution to the opioid epidemic. Close the coverage gap. Expand Medicaid. No more excuses.
Jesse Bennett is the Statewide Overdose Prevention Coordinator for the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition.
Donald McDonald is the Executive Director of Addiction Professionals of North Carolina.
Letter: Medicare (for All) Spending (projections)
Regarding “How a libertarian analyst inadvertently made a good case for Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All” (July 31): In the moral universe of libertarian thinkers like Charles Blahous, spending private money for goods and services is always better than spending public money. Yet publicly-funded Medicare is hugely more efficient than private insurance .
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that U.S. healthcare costs are growing at 5.5 percent a year. Sooner rather than later, we will be paying $4.2 trillion more than we are now. The real question is whether all of that extra cost goes toward keeping us healthy, or toward profit and compensation for over-paid executives.
Under Medicare for All, there will be no pre-existing condition exclusions, no premiums, and no deductibles or co-payments. Most Americans will pay less for health care that will be accessible to all. That’s the moral universe I prefer to live in.
1st Opinion: Is this the year the AMA finally joins the single-payer movement?
Fifty years ago this month, at the 1968 meeting of the American Medical Association, a fourth-year medical student named Peter Schnall seized the microphone and scolded several hundred of the most prestigious, highly educated white men in America.
“Organized medicine has never felt responsible and accountable to the American people for its actions and continues to deny them any significant voice in determining the nature of services offered to them,” Schnall chastised the group.
...
Today, in the midst of a revived Poor People’s Campaign, physicians and medical students are again pressuring the AMA to be more responsive to the needs of the nation’s uninsured and underinsured. At the AMA’s House of Delegates annual meeting in Chicago this weekend, its Medical Student Section will ask the AMA to end its decades-long opposition to a single-payer health insurance program, a system better known as Medicare for All that would be publicly financed but privately delivered.
N&O: States that Expanded MCD have no regrets
Now that Congressional efforts to repeal or replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have abated, North Carolina and the other 17 states that have not expanded Medicaid can consider whether to do so going forward. ...
... The strong balance of objective evidence indicates that actual costs to states so far from expanding Medicaid are negligible or minor, and that states across the political spectrum do not regret their decisions to expand Medicaid.
Five things to know about Medicaid work requirements
Source: The Hill, by Nathaniel Weixel ⇥
The Trump administration released landmark guidance this week aimed at allowing states to impose work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, a major shift in the design of the health insurance program for the poor and disabled. ...
No state has ever done it before.
There are going to be lawsuits.
Not everyone will be required to work.
People will lose coverage.
Red states are most interested.
LA-Times: We’ve been fighting over government’s role in med.care for decades. That fight will continue
Source: LA Times OpEd page ⇥
Submitted By: Claudia Prose
By Steve Tarzynski, MD
From my decades of experience as a doctor, it seems to me that no market-driven healthcare system can simultaneously limit costs, guarantee universal coverage and deliver desired outcomes. Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that the best way to reduce costs and guarantee healthcare to everyone is to have the largest risk pool — that is, the entire nation. These facts compel the United States to move to a single-payer system guided by comparisons with other countries’ experiences and by our own American successes, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The preamble of our Constitution states that government exists to provide “domestic tranquility” and “promote the general welfare,” which certainly suggests constitutional support for healthcare for all.
Steve Tarzynski is a physician and president of the California Physicians Alliance.
Follow here
Looking Beyond the Obamacare Debate to Improve Health Care
Source: New York Times Editorial Board ⇥
Submitted By: Robin Lane
Now that Republicans in Congress appear to have at least temporarily abandoned their crusade against the Affordable Care Act, it seems like a good time for lawmakers to come up with plans to fulfill their promises to increase access to health care and to lower costs.
...
Single Payer is favored by 53% of Americans.
...
Nevada Legislature passed a bill in June that would have allowed people who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid to buy into that program.
...
Another approach would be to let people buy into Medicare at some point before they become eligible for the program at age 65.
...
The Republican campaign to repeal Obamacare, for all its waste of time and energy, has at least gotten people to talk seriously about proposals to improve the health care system.
NYT: Upshot/Economic View: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money
Source: New York Times Editorial Section ⇥
Submitted By: Jonathan Kotch
The total cost of providing health coverage under the single-payer approach is actually substantially lower than under the current system in the United States.
Video of Rev. Barber “Putting A Face On U.S. Healthcare Policies”
Repairers of the Breach’s inaugural Gathering in North Carolina on June 4, 2017 features co-hosts the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove shifting the moral narrative on the U.S. healthcare debate through an hour of storytelling, music, interviews with community organizers and impacted […]
CAP: AHCA’s State-by-state & Congressional Dist. Coverage Losses
Source: Center for American Progress ⇥
Submitted By: Gary Greenberg
Using data from Congressional Budget Office analysis and Census data, with enrollment statistics from Kaiser Family Foundation; they derive per-state and individual district.
NC loses 1.3 Million individuals’ coverage,
607,600 from Medicaid, 85,600 from Employer-sponsored insurance and 608,000 from the Individual marketplace
Download the table by congressional district, by Emily Gee, a health economist at the Center for American Progress
= — = — = — = — = — = —
Mortality increases resulting from reduced coverage is also detailed in a separate analysis, also broken down state-by-state.
NC additional deaths project to 1,568 in 2026
NYT: The Single-Payer Party? Democrats Shift Left on Health Care
Source: NY Times Opinion Page ⇥
Submitted By: Jonathan Kotch, MD
Intro by Dr.Kotch:
As Margaret Flowers made her way across Central and Western NC two weeks ago, there was a feeling that single payer is no longer an expletive to be deleted. More and more people are talking about it, thanks in part to Bernie Sanders and people like Margaret (and you, dear reader!) who have been advocating for single payer for years without shame or embarrassment. It has helped that the language has shifted. Single payer has multiple meanings (including the derogatory "socialized medicine"), but Medicare for All has real salience for just about everyone. Now it looks like the leadership in the Democratic Party has itself been led to single payer by the people, who are demanding a real change, not the flawed solution that the ACA provided. A majority of House Democrats have signed on to John Conyers' HR 676, "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All." The New York State House of Representatives and the California State Senate each have passed single payer legislation. We need to re-invigorate our own efforts at the state and national levels.
Dr’s prescrip.for health insurance: Remove the profit motive
Source: Charlotte Post, Local & State ⇥
Submitted By: Mark Almberg
Robert Zarr M.D., a practicing pediatrician in Washington, D.C., and an expert on international health and universal health care.
Is single-payer health insurance inevitable?
Polling suggests the idea of single payer insurance is popular. Why is that?
Why isn’t single payer the law of the land now?
Why isn’t there more political will to remove the profit motive from health insurance?
Has the battle over repeal and replace overwhelmed advocacy for single payer?
What do you see four years into the future for health insurance?
NC Policy Watch: Real lives at stake in the chaos in Washington
Source: Fitzsimon File at NC Policy Watch By Chris Fitzsimon ⇥
Submitted By: Brenda Cleary
Never mind the bullying tweets... the disturbing confirmation hearings...
And for a moment try not to think about even the fact that every part of the U.S. intelligence infrastructure believes a foreign government interfered with the 2016 election to help one candidate win.
... But then consider that the new president and the Republican majorities in Congress are rushing to take health care away from 30 million people by repealing the Affordable Care Act without any announced plan to replace it, only vague promises by the new president that everybody will be covered, a statement that others in power immediately tried to walk away from.
Repealing the ACA isn’t just a political act. It is an assault that threatens people’s lives and the financial security of millions of families.
Read more inside
Editorial: Cooper needs to expand Medicaid so more in N.C. have health care
Source: WRAL online ⇥
Capitol Broadcasting Co Editorial
Efforts to revive the hospital in Belhaven in rural Eastern North Carolina are, like a medical patient, on life support. A community-based group, seeking to buy the now-closed facility and reopen at least portions of it, was in a Raleigh courtroom earlier this week trying to save the facility. A temporary court order has, for now, halted demolition of the building.
...
The reality, however, is the issue is more than the fate of a tiny hospital in a small town in rural Beaufort County. It is illustrative of the struggle going on in rural communities throughout North Carolina and the nation. In the last six years more than 75 rural hospitals have closed across the nation, half of them in the South and three, including Belhaven, in North Carolina.
...
Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that rural hospitals in states that did accept the additional federal funds improved their chances of turning a profit while it didn’t have any impact on urban-based hospitals.
Expanding Medicaid, several studies have shown, boosts local economies and creates jobs. The cost of North Carolina’s partisan opposition to expanding Medicaid has been more than dollars or jobs. Access to adequate health care in rural communities is suffering.
...
We doubt the General Assembly is any more interested now, than before, in expanding participation in Medicaid – even if it is almost fully federally funded.
Obamacare’s ‘Failure’ in North Carolina, (is the NC Legislature’s)
Source: Editorial section ⇥
Why health insurance has reached a crisis point in the Tar Heel State by Greg Lacour It’s been a few weeks since Aetna decided to withdraw from the federal health insurance marketplace in North Carolina, a decision made for questionable reasons and with hard consequences for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, including me. … frustrating […]
To save more NC infants, expand Medicaid
Source: Ral. News & Observer Editorial ⇥
With so many low-income people without health insurance, North Carolina has hundreds of thousands of reasons to expand Medicaid. Now here’s another: It could save the lives of infants.
A new report from NC Child funded by Community Catalyst and the Annie E. Casey Foundation focuses on North Carolina’s high infant mortality rate and how expanding Medicaid to low-income women could bring that rate down, especially for African-Americans and Hispanics.
...
The language of the report describes the problem in stark terms. It says, “For every 1,000 babies born alive in North Carolina, seven will die in their first year of life.” With about 121,000 births annually, that rate translates into an average of three infant deaths per day.
North Carolina has the eighth-highest infant death rate in the nation, a status that report puts in startling perspective. It says, “A baby born in North Carolina is less likely to live to celebrate her first birthday than one born in the neighboring states of South Carolina, Virginia, or Tennessee.
...
Ned Barnett, nbarnett@nbewsobserver.com
Mangling North Carolina’s model Medicaid system
Source: Op-Ed Raleigh News & Observer ⇥
The General Assembly’s Medicaid reform proposal is not in the best interest of our state.
Contrary to rhetoric from our governor and other politicians, our Medicaid system is not “broken”.
There is no logic in disrupting such a successful homegrown system with for-profit managed-care organizations
By Robert H. Bilbro, MD
Dr. Bilbro is a cardiologist and co-founder of the Raleigh Medical Group. He has served as president of the medical staff at WakeMed and was president of the Wake County Medical Society. He also volunteers as coordinator of the clinics at a drug and alcohol addiction recovery program in Raleigh.
In NC, a shameful Medicaid gap persists
Source: Raleigh News & Observer Editorial ⇥
North Carolina’s disgrace
Unnecessary Medicaid gap
Solution would be easy
CNBC: Health-care costs for families top $25,000 — triple 2001
Source: Online & cable TV ⇥
Submitted By: Jim Hillegas
But the rise seen in 2016 marks the lowest annual increase since at least 2001. by Dan Mangan
The costs of providing health care to an average American family surpassed $25,000 for the first time in 2016 — even as the rate of health cost increases slowed to a record low, a new analysis revealed Tuesday.
The $25,826 in health-care costs for a typical family of four covered by a employer-sponsored "preferred provider plan" is $1,155 higher than last year, and triple what it cost to provide health care for the same family in 2001, the first year that Milliman Medical Index analysis was done.
And it's the 11th consecutive year that the total dollar increase in the average family's health-care costs exceeded $1,110, actuarial services firm Milliman noted as it released the index.
NC DHHS Seeks Comments on MCD Reform Waiver
Source: NC Dept Human Services ⇥
Governor McCrory's Secretary of Health & Human Services is presenting a detailed program for Federal approval, seeking to change the state's Medicaid financing and operation.
Among the plans' components are proposals for:
Contracting with competing for-profit networks, which will likely include
· programs for managing health costs such that providers join ACO's (Affordable Care Organizations)
· non-overlapping corporate contracs dividing the state's low-income care programs
· losing the administrative success of the Community Care of N.Carolina
· reassessment of CCNC's award-winning results with quality and efficient care based on provider-developed standards & incentives
Places providers into situations where clinical decisions may cause direct costs
· Combining current managed-care Mental Health regional contracts (local management entities, LME's) with non-Mental Health coverage.
Health and Human Services Secretary Rick Brajer has invited citizens, advocates, providers and interest groups to testify (written or oral) at a series of statewide "listening sessions".
NC HlthNews: All Voter Groups Support MCD-Exp
Source: NC Health News ⇥
By Rose Hoban
Voters of every stripe believe the state should expand the Medicaid program to include those who are currently too poor to have insurance. That’s according to results of a survey from Public Policy Polling released on Tuesday.
In a survey of more than 2,000 registered voters, clear majorities of men, women, Democrats, Republicans and Independents said they supported the legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory fixing “the coverage gap by creating a special North Carolina plan in partnership with the Federal government.”
Group presses for Medicaid expansion
Source: News & Observer, Durham News Front page ⇥
BY NATALIE RITCHIE nritchie@newsobserver.com
With legislative leadership opposing Medicaid expansion, a local legislator believes events like a rally in Durham this week are important to reversing its stance.
"This is a critical time for people to speak out," Rep. Graig Meyer said. As the 2016 election season kicks off, he hopes voters will both bring new voices to the legislature and "convince people who get reelected that this is an issue that the public wants them to take up."
The interfaith prayer vigil held Wednesday on CCB plaza downtown also served as a send-off for a Coalition for Health Care of North Carolina delegation taking 3,884 signed letters to Gov. Pat McCrory’s office.
The letter calls on the governor to expand Medicaid to an estimated 357,000 North Carolinians, declaring the plan would generate 25,000 jobs by 2016 and $21 billion in business activity from 2016 to 2020.
The letter also cited a 2014 study that found between 455 and 1,145 North Carolinians who would have been covered by the expansion will die each year because they aren’t insured.
Students from N.C. Central University and UNC went door-to-door and collected about half of the signatures. Three of them, Amire Shealey, Ashley Bueno and Jennifer Hendrix, spoke at the event before leaving for Raleigh to deliver the letters.
KFF: Positive Opinions of a Medicare-For-All Idea
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans (58 percent) say they favor the idea of Medicare-for-all, including 34 percent who say they strongly favor it. This is compared to 34 percent who say they oppose it, including 25 percent who strongly oppose it.
Opinions vary widely by political party identification, with 8 in 10 Democrats (81 percent) and 6 in 10 independents (60 percent) saying they favor the idea, while 63 percent of Republicans say they oppose it.
SD: Another GOP Gov. Calls For Obamacare MCD Expansion
Source: Huffington Post ⇥
by Jeffrey Young Health Care Reporter, The Huffington Post
The wall of Republican opposition to helping poor people get health care keeps cracking.
WASHINGTON -- Add South Dakota's Dennis Daugaard to the list of Republican governors who have changed their minds about Obamacare's Medicaid expansion.
The second-term governor pitched a plan to expand the joint federal-state health insurance program to as many as 55,000 low-income South Dakotans without using state money during a speech to the overwhelmingly Republican legislature Tuesday. Daugaard rejected the expansion three years ago, objecting to allowing "able-bodied" people to get covered.
...
Although many Republican governors in the remaining states are still against it, several -- including presidential candidates John Kasich of Ohio and Chris Christie of New Jersey, and conservatives like Indiana's Mike Pence -- have deviated from the party line. North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) came out in favor of the expansion in 2012.
Deaths in middle-aged, middle class whites; high insurance rates & demanding the return of democracy
The mortality rate for white middle-aged Americans actually increased by 134 per 100,000 between 1999 and 2014, a public health disaster of the same magnitude as the loss of life caused by HIV/AIDS.
The increase in premiums for health insurance that North Carolinians can buy through the health insurance exchange is among the highest in the country.
These two things are related.
Goodwin: The ‘stubborn tax’ hikes N.C. premiums
Source: Raleigh News & Observer Editorial ⇥
BY NED BARNETT Wayne Goodwin, North Carolina’s insurance commissioner, isn’t a household name, but his work on behalf of consumers affects almost every household. His pushback against rising homeowners insurance rates has insurance companies suing him in state court. And his skepticism about requested hikes in auto insurance has helped give North Carolina the lowest […]
Medicaid holdout puts infants at risk
Source: News & Observer, Editorial page ⇥
BY NED BARNETT 919-829-4512
While Republican leaders in Raleigh refuse to expand Medicaid, Dr. Dorothy DeGuzman spends her days in rural Yancey County dealing with the consequences.
DeGuzman works for Celo Health Center in Burnsville, a nonprofit, community-owned family practice that serves low-income people in the mountainous county north of Asheville. Most of the center’s patients do not have private health insurance, and their health reflects a lack of access to doctors and preventative programs that would help reduce obesity, hypertension, smoking and substance abuse.
The medical-care gap shows up most profoundly in the pregnant women DeGuzman sees. … Low-income pregnant women.
Lack of Medicaid expansion in NC a scourge upon our morality
Source: Ral. News & Observer ⇥
By Kenneth J. Fortier, M.D.,Clinician in Chapel Hill
The collateral damage is unacceptable when conflicts leach from Jones Street into bedrooms of sick children or around kitchen tables where worried people must decide between food and rent money or seeing the doctor
The excuses have expired, including two Supreme Court decisions
With or without privatization, continued rejection of Medicaid expansion perpetuates a scourge upon compassion and morality
Char.Observer: 2 Views on New NC MCD Privatization/”Reform”
Source: Editorial Section, Charlotte Observer ⇥
A Charlotte doctor and an Americans for Prosperity official answer:
Is Medicaid reform good for N.C.?
Yes: New system puts patients first.
Joseph Kyzer is the Communications Director at Americans for Prosperity North Carolina.
... Between 2008 and 2013, North Carolina’s Medicaid system was an unmitigated bureaucratic disaster...
No: CCNC has worked well
Jessica Schorr Saxe is a Charlotte physician. She is chair of Health Care Justice-NC.
... The widely publicized Medicaid overruns of the past few years were not due to CCNC failures but to repeated underbudgeting by the legislature. Claim costs were actually level over this period.
Commitment to the health of patients and communities has resulted in quality improvements...
NPR: 50 Years Ago, MCR Helped Desegregate Hospitals
Source: NPR Morning Edition ⇥
Submitted By: Jonathan Kotch
by Renee Montagne
Medicare turns 50 years old today. The law creating a national health insurance program for older Americans was signed in 1965 after a long political battle. One big opponent was the American Medical Association. The AMA famously signed up then-actor Ronald Reagan to campaign against Medicare.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AD)
RONALD REAGAN: Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write. If you don't, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow....
...
MONTAGNE: Medicare became a force for civil rights because the Civil Rights Act was signed just a year before, and it now barred federal funding for institutions that discriminated on the basis of race. For hospitals, the fear of losing federal funds became a powerful motivator.
CharObs: Happy 50th birthday to MCR program
What do these recent news stories in the Observer have in common?
An insurance agent connives to sell Affordable Care Act policies to homeless people by encouraging them to report inflated incomes. ...
Health care advocates across the state call on Governor McCrory to develop a plan for Medicaid expansion, noting that hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians would benefit significantly, at little cost to the state.
A benefit concert is held to pay mounting medical bills for an artist severely injured when struck by a car.
The answer: None of these stories would exist if the United States provided health care to all – as every other developed nation does.
...
As a physician, I would love to see us return to the primary mission that has inspired our profession for millennia – caring for patients, listening to their stories, concentrating on their well-being – instead of filling out forms and dancing to the beat of insurance companies.
Happy Anniversary, Medicare! Let’s celebrate its success by improving it and expanding it to all.
Utah GOP leaders reach a deal on Medicaid expansion
Source: Salt Lake Tribune ⇥
Submitted By: Gary Greenberg
By Robert Gehrke Republican leaders have agreed to a broad, conceptual framework for expanding Medicaid to insure tens of thousands of low-income Utahns with a plan that would call on medical providers to pay for the new health coverage. … Sources familiar with the conceptual agreement say it would require hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical companies […]
Expand state’s Medicaid, group in Greensboro implores McCrory
Source: Greensboro News & Record ⇥
GREENSBORO — Health care advocates calling for Gov. Pat McCrory to expand the state’s Medicaid program say he needs to show leadership on the issue.
“We really want to tell the governor it’s time to do what’s right,” said Robin Lane, a retired pediatric nurse.
Lane was among several speakers at a news conference, including Guilford County Commissioner Ray Trapp and City Councilman Jamal Fox, asking the governor to expand health insurance coverage for the poor.
The gathering of about 100 people of varying economic backgrounds, races and ages at the Beloved Community Center was one of six events held Thursday from Greenville to Asheville calling on McCrory to deliver a Medicaid expansion plan.
HuffPost, WSJ: Alaska’s Gov to Expand MCD Over GOP Legislature
Source: Huffington Post ⇥
Submitted By: Gary Greenberg
Alaska would become the latest state to sign on to a major expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act through a plan announced by Gov. Bill Walker on Thursday.
Walker, a Republican-turned-independent elected in 2014 on a platform that included Medicaid expansion, had been courting the Republican-led state legislature on the issue. But after lawmakers failed to advance his proposal in their latest session, he decided to carry out the policy on his own authority
“Unified System” View of Luis Lang, Reluctant ACA Pt/Supporter
Lang sparks wrong questions
Have you weighed in on Luis Lang, the diabetic smoker who put off getting health insurance until he was about to go blind from complications of diabetes, only to find it was too late to enroll in an Affordable Care Act policy and that he wasn’t eligible for Medicaid in South Carolina?Apparently everyone has a position...
The problem is that this is the wrong discussion...
What’s the best model? ...
We all benefit from coverage ...
Much spending is wasted ...
New York Assembly Passes Single-Payer Bill
Source: Healthcare-NOW! news release ⇥
Submitted By: Jonathan Kotch
(5/29/15) the New York State Assembly voted on single-payer legislation introduced by Assemblyman Dick Gottfried... and the bill passed by an almost 2-to-1 margin!
With close to 20 million residents, New York is the 4th largest state in the country. This week's vote is a profound testament to the ongoing health crisis experienced by Americans, which can only be solved through a public, universal health plan. The next step for the single-payer movement in New York is winning approval of the state Senate and a Governor's signature.
WTVD: ‘Moral Monday’ Protests Return (on MCD-Exp)
Source: WTVD, ABC-11, 11PM News ⇥
Submitted By: Perri Morgan
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Another round of Moral Monday demonstrations took place on Wednesday afternoon, but this time no one wound up in jail.
Medicaid expansion and environmental justice issues were on the minds of demonstrators at the Legislative Building.
While no one was arrested Wednesday, the group did add a familiar name to its list of supporters.
...
On the healthcare front, several doctors were in the crowd to fight for the expansion of Medicaid, which they say will help hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians.
By Angelica Alvarez
Under-insured: The biggest problem Obamacare didn’t fix
Source: Yahoo Finance ⇥
Submitted By: Jonathan Kotch
More Americans have health insurance. Fewer people have to worry about catastrophic medical costs. Those are notable accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act. But 31 million Americans remain “underinsured,” which means they have healthcare coverage but still face out-of-pocket medical costs that could cause serious financial stress. Like workers who are underemployed—holding a job but […]
With SGR Repeal, Now We Can Proceed with Medicare Payment Reform
Source: Commonwealth Fund Blog ⇥
Submitted By: Robin Lane
By Stuart Guterman Yesterday, the Senate passed the long-awaited permanent “doc fix,” previously passed by the House of Representatives, to repeal the sustainable growth rate formula (SGR) and avert a 21 percent across-the-board cut in Medicare’s physician fees that was originally scheduled to take effect on April 1.1 The President has announced that he will sign […]
Montana House Republicans break ranks to pass Medicaid expansion
Source: Christian Science Monitor ⇥
By Cristina Maza, Staff writer For many Republicans, the move to expand access to Medicaid amounts to an endorsement of Obamacare, but states like Montana that refused federal funding have been under pressure to reconsider that decision. A contentious legislative battle in Montana ended this week, after the state’s GOP-controlled House voted to accept federal […]
NYT: Fed. Budget Office Lowers ACA Cost Estimate (again)
Source: New York Times ⇥
Submitted By: Robin Lane
By Robert Pear WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office on Monday again lowered its estimate of the cost of the Affordable Care Act, citing slow growth of health insurance premiums as a major factor. Just since January, the budget office said, it has reduced its estimate of the 10-year cost of federal insurance subsidies by […]
Char.Bus.Jl: McCrory still not sold on Medicaid expansion
Source: Charlotte Business Journal, Erik Spanberg Senior Staff Writer ⇥
by Erik Spanberg, Senior Staff Writer-Charlotte Business Journal
N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory sounds skeptical about accepting expanded coverage for low-income people across the state from the federal government. This week, while McCrory was in Charlotte attending the announcement of new golf event at Quail Hollow Club, I asked the governor for an update on expanding Medicaid.
He has spent much of the past year flirting with the idea of a tailored version of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to make expanded coverage more palatable. Supporters of the Obama program say the state is losing money paid by N.C. taxpayers that is benefiting other states that have opted in.
McCrory discussed the matter with Obama at the White House this month and in January.
"My major goal right now is to get Medicaid reform," McCrory told me Wednesday.
Activists, former judge ‘indict’ NC lawmakers for denying Medicaid expansion
Source: Charlotte Observer ⇥
RALEIGH Shirley Fulton, a retired Superior Court judge from Charlotte, presided Monday over a mock grand jury hearing designed to shame North Carolina legislators into expanding Medicaid.
Activists assembled in the legislative office building at noon to make arguments for extending government health insurance to impoverished adults who lack access to Medicaid or subsidized private plans.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the N.C. NAACP, said the process is partly to draw attention to the issue and partly to prepare for real legal action. “There is a possibility we’re going to bring a constitutional case,” similar to the longstanding Leandro suit alleging that the state failed its constitutional obligation for public education, he said.
The N.C. Medicaid Expansion Coalition, which had planned four hours of testimony, adjourned early with forecasts calling for dangerous driving conditions. Organizers plan to bring people back in about two weeks to continue sharing personal stories of how citizens and the state’s economy are affected by having hundreds of thousands without access to insurance they can afford.
N&O: ‘HKonJ’ marchers take to Raleigh streets
Source: News & Observer online & newspaper ⇥
RALEIGH — Thousands marched through downtown Raleigh on Saturday, singing, chanting and continuing to fight for the expansion of Medicaid in North Carolina, more money for public schools, a higher minimum wage and voting rights.
For nine years, the NAACP has organized a “Mass Moral March on Raleigh,” bringing together a coalition of groups to put forward a legislative agenda ending a week of themed demonstrations in the N.C. Legislative Building.
The crowds have grown through the years, with sharp increases in the past several marches as the political power in the N.C. General Assembly and governor’s office switched from Democrat to Republican.
Last year, while North Carolina was in the national spotlight as a testing ground for conservative tax policies, deregulation and social-program cutbacks, buses filled with critics of such policies came from outside the state to march.
Please read whole article
BY ANNE BLYTHE
ablythe@newsobserver.com 919-836-4948 Twitter: @AnneBlythe1
N&O: Groups renew push to expand Medicaid in North Carolina
Source: N&O: News > Politics & Government > National Politics ⇥
In a press conference in Greensboro to announce NCLeftMeOut.org, by JIM MORRILL RALEIGH — A coalition of groups launched an effort Wednesday that is designed to put a face on their case to expand Medicaid in North Carolina. And the face at a morning news conference was that of a Charlotte woman who said she […]
Another GOP Gov’s Compromise: IN’s MCD Expansion
Source: NY Times, Page A12 ⇥
Indiana's Governor Mike Pence, a Republican, & Administration HHS have reached a compromise for Medicaid expansion:
- Include all adults <138% of Federal Poverty Limit
- Enrolled will have to pay premiums of 2% of income for coverage that includes dental and vision benefits.
- Those who earn less than 100% of Fed. Pov. Limit will not have to pay premiums.
What Happened in Vermont: Implications of the Pullback from Single Payer
Source: Common Dreams, Website ⇥
Submitted By: Gary Greenberg
Gov. Peter Shumlin’s Dec. 17, 2014, announcement that he would not press forward with Vermont’s Green Mountain Care (GMC) reform arose from political calculus rather than fiscal necessity. GMC had veered away from a true single payer design over the past three years, forfeiting some potential cost savings. Yet even the diluted plan on the […]
Latino Press (La Conexión) Covers Impact of Failed MCD Expansion
Source: La Conexión, December-January 2015 issue ⇥
Submitted By: Gary Greenberg
En Carolina del Norte más de 40 mil nuevos puestos de trabajo se crearían si se expande el Medicaid Photo is from a prior (summertime) press conference.
Civitas on Why Medicaid Expansion Isn’t Good Idea
Source: Raleigh News & Observer ⇥
Submitted By: Gary Greenberg
by Brian Balfour, policy director of the Civitas Institute in Raleigh. Summary points: Cone Health study over-estimates income for newly-enrolled MCD patients because: there aren’t enough doctors’ appointments doctors will turn down MCD reimbursements government interference is a bad thing Be sure to read the responses, too.
Report: NC Medicaid expansion would create thousands of jobs
Source: Raleigh News & Observer ⇥
Submitted By: Gary Greenberg
by John Murawski Expanding the federal Medicaid program in North Carolina would create 43,314 jobs in the state by 2020, including about 12,000 jobs in the Triangle, according to a study issued Thursday. The study was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University and funded by the Cone Health Foundation in Greensboro and the Kate B. […]
