SCOTUS, the Individual Mandate, and Stuart Butler

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Just today, a new article of mine was published in Politico Magazine — available by clicking here.

Between now and the end of June, the US Supreme Court will rule on whether the entire Affordable Care Act should be overturned because of, once again, the mandate on individual Americans to purchase health insurance if they can afford to do so, or to pay a tax penalty if they don’t. In late 2017, Pres. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress reduced the mandate penalty to zero — triggering a new federal lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General to overthrow the whole law.

In anticipation of that, I describe the 33 year history of the mandate in US health policy & politics, with particular attention to the individual who first brought notice to it in 1989, Stuart Butler, then of the Heritage Foundation and now of the Brookings Institution. In the process, I consider the 40 year history of free-market fundamentalism and neoliberalism in the US, an era that I and many others believe is now coming to an end.

I hope you like it and let me know what you think.

The Health Reformers’ Dilemma

[The Milbank Quarterly just published this new commentary that I wrote for their November 2018 edition.]

Ever since the US Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the expansion of Medicaid as required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) must be optional rather than mandatory for states, health care advocates have worked heart and soul to convince their state governments to adopt the expansion. For Virginians, the moment arrived in 2018 after years of frustration—with a catch. The only politically viable pathway to expansion included a detested provision, known as the “work requirement,” that obligates many new enrollees to work or else forfeit coverage. What to do?

I explored this dilemma with health justice advocates in Virginia, the first state to confront work requirements that had not previously expanded Medicaid. In November 2017, Virginia voters elected a respected new Democratic governor named Ralph Northam along with an eye-popping jump in the number of Democrats in the state’s House of Delegates, leaving them just 2 votes shy of majorities in the House and Senate. In May 2018, solid bipartisan majorities formed to enact Medicaid expansion after years of discouraging defeats. The wrinkle was including a work requirement and imposing cost sharing on Medicaid beneficiaries. Continue reading “The Health Reformers’ Dilemma”

Might We See a Medicaid Wave Start Next Week?

[This column appeared on the Health Affairs blog on Thursday, November 1.]

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states must have an option whether or not to expand Medicaid as authorized in the Affordable Care Act, expansion has been a long, slow slog, state by state, inch by inch. While blue states had mostly lined up to expand Medicaid by 2013, nearly every purple and red state proved to be a battlefield. Today, 19 states have yet to expand, with 31 in the “yes” column (plus the District of Columbia) (see table 1). The last state to expand, #31, was Louisiana in mid-2016. But, might a mighty Medicaid wave be coming courtesy of the November 6^th elections? The answer is a definite maybe.

Right now, all that’s certain is that Virginia will become state #32 to expand Medicaid in January. The state enacted the 400,000-person expansion last May, albeit with a “work requirement” to be filed with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sometime in 2019.

Maine is certain to become #33 early next year if Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills wins the Governor’s Chair. In November 2017, Maine voters approved expansion—59-41 percent—in a state ballot initiative. Departing Republican Governor Paul LePage refused to implement the expansion in spite of strong legislative support to do so, as well as an order from Maine’s highest court. In previous years, the Legislature failed by only a small number of votes to override LePage’s vetoes (5 times). Progressive forces expect to pick up state legislative seats on November 6^th, so it’s also possible expansion could happen with a new Republican governor, supportive or not.

State Adoption Of ACA Medicaid Expansion (By Year)

SOURCE: Advisory Board. “Where the States Stand on Medicaid Expansion.” June 8 2018. Accessed Oct. 29 2018 at: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/resources/primers/medicaidmap

Medicaid On the Ballot

Activists in three states—Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah—are standing in the wings hoping to be states #34, 35, and 36 depending on the outcomes of state ballot initiatives in each of them on November 6^th. Montana has an initiative on the ballot to continue its expansion with dedicated funding.

While Idaho’s departing Governor Butch Otter fought consistently against Medicaid expansion throughout his tenure, he recently changed his position and announced his support for the Medicaid ballot initiative. Republican gubernatorial candidate Brad Little says he will respect the ballot initiative’s outcome—even though the measure does not specify how to finance the 10 percent financing match states will need to pay by 2020 (7 percent in 2019). Two organizations, Idahoans for Healthcare and Reclaim Idaho raised $594,191 by the late September reporting deadline, while the opposition Work, Not ObamaCare has raised $29,999. Idaho’s Hospital and Medical Associations contributed nearly $200,000 to the “yes” effort. Recent polling shows 66 percent support, including 77 percent from independents and 53 percent from Republicans. The yes campaign co-chair is Republican State Representative Christy Perry.

Nebraska previously did not have enough support to overturn a Governor’s veto against expansion. Nebraska Governor Pete Rickets maintains his opposition as he coasts toward an easy re-election. But it’s a spirited race for Nebraska Initiative 427, the Medicaid Expansion Initiative that would cover an estimated 90,000 low-income Nebraskans. The lead organization—Insure the Good Life—has raised $1.69 million as of late September to support a yes vote, versus $0 by the opposition Americans for Prosperity. The “yes” camp’s largest contributor is a national progressive political action committee called the “Fairness Project” which also backed the 2017 Maine Medicaid initiative and which has donated $1.19 million. Other key supporters include the Nebraska Hospital Association, the state health center association, Nebraska AARP and 24 other organizations.

Of the three ballot initiative campaigns, Utah’s is the most compelling. Proposition 3 would raise the state’s sale tax from 4.70 to 4.85 percent to fully finance the expansion for 150,000 low-income Utah residents. In 2021, that is projected to raise $88 million to cover the state’s projected $78 million share of the $846 million total expansion cost (the federal government pays the rest). A February 2018 poll showed 68 percent support among Utah voters. As in Nebraska, the national Fairness Project is driving the campaign, providing $2.7 of the $2.83 million raised as of late September. A wide array of health care and religious organizations are public supporters. No organization is registered with the state in public opposition to the initiative, as of late September.

To thwart the proposal, in March, Governor Gary Herbert signed House Bill 472 into law to expand Medicaid for individuals with household incomes no higher than 95 percent of the federal poverty line, as opposed to 138 percent in Proposition 3, as authorized under the ACA. HB472 would also impose work requirements on many enrollees and would cover 90,000 as opposed to the initiative’s 150,000. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration rejected a plan similar to HB472 that was advanced by Oklahoma to expand Medicaid eligibility no higher than 100 percent of the federal poverty level. So it is unclear whether the Trump Administration will allow the Utah HB472 expansion to go forward.

Montana is another state with a Medicaid expansion ballot initiative facing the voters on November 6^th, but to continue the existing expansion. The state expanded Medicaid in 2015, though only through 2019. The November 6^th ballot will present an initiative, I-185, to continue expansion past 2019 by raising tobacco taxes by $2 a pack as the state’s funding source. Healthy Montana for I-185 backers have raised $4.8 million and are battling the tobacco industry in the form of Montanans Against Tax Hikes (MATH) which has invested at least $12 million to defeat the initiative; 97 percent of the MATH’s money has come from Altria Client Services, maker of Marlboro cigarettes and other smoking products. If voters approve, the expansion will continue without restraints. If the referendum fails, the legislature still could pass a new funding law, likely with a work requirement attached.

Other Election Day Impacts

Of the 14 remaining non-expansion states, the November 6^th results may have consequential impact. If Democratic candidates win currently competitive gubernatorial races in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and Wisconsin, and pick up legislative seats, that could alter the Medicaid expansion equation. This would be especially true in Kansas where prior expansion efforts were thwarted by a narrow inability to override gubernatorial vetoes by only three votes. In other states, notably North Carolina with Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, significant Democratic gains in the state legislature may also have a consequential impact.

Some noteworthy features of this issue are worth considering. First, in many of these remaining states with Republican control, the price of expansion is likely to include work requirements on many newly eligible enrollees—as occurred in Virginia this past year. Unless ruled illegal by the federal courts, this national experiment will more than likely run at least for the duration of Republican control of the executive branch. As is apparent from the track record in Arkansas thus far, this is about values and ideology more than dollars and sense.

Second, after six years of fighting the Medicaid expansion wars, it is clear that most expansion opponents are not going to change their minds. Not much is left to say that hasn’t been said countless times before. As we saw in Virginia, a change of mind accompanies a change in occupants of legislative and gubernatorial seats. And in the four November 6^th ballot initiative states, if successful, we should anticipate that one or more of the affected Governors may imitate Maine Governor LePage in seeking to block expansion in spite of voter sentiment.

Third, in spite of all the uproar, it is significant that not one expansion state has gone back on it, or even considered doing so. The closest an expansion came to a rollback was the election of hard right conservative Matt Bevin as Kentucky’s governor in 2015. Bevin abandoned his pledge to repeal Kentucky’s ground-breaking and successful Medicaid expansion early in his gubernatorial campaign, and never returned to that stance, turning to mandatory work requirements as the next best thing.

Much like how the public’s support for banning pre-existing condition exclusions has become calcified in the public’s mind from the battles of 2017 and 2018, similarly the expansion of Medicaid has become hard-wired into public consciousness in the states that adopted it.

I have yet to read an insider’s account on how and why the U.S. Supreme Court lined up 7 votes to secure their atrocious 2012 ruling to make Medicaid expansion an option for states. It is true that their decision played a role in compelling Americans to grapple with and understand the rationale and importance for Medicaid expansion. But at what a damn price!

Continue reading “Might We See a Medicaid Wave Start Next Week?”

Health Reform Realism

[I wrote this new commentary for the Milbank Quarterly.]

In noticeable ways our current health reform period resembles the 2005-2006 era when political leaders, stakeholders, and think tanks began formulating proposals to prepare for a future national effort to achieve comprehensive health reform, a process that came to fruition with the signing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010. Though those years were also a time of unitary Republican control of the White House and both houses of Congress, many foresaw the arrival of a new president and Congress in 2009 as a potential and not-to-be-missed window of opportunity for important reform. Waiting until 2009 to begin planning would have been too late. I propose that in 2018 we embrace this renewed possibility for reform with realism and humility.

Today, we already see a plethora of legislative and policy proposals emerging from elected Democratic officials and progressive think tanks such as the Urban Institute and the Center for American Progress. While Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All bill seeks the holy grail of single-payer reconstruction, others aim for meaningful yet incremental changes to address critical pain points in the current system.

All of these plans rely on an unreliable expectation that, come January 2021, Democrats will control the White House and governing majorities in the US Senate and House of Representatives, as the federal election cycles of 2018 and 2020 come to resemble the blue-wave cycles of 2006 and 2008. All of these plans recognize little potential for meaningful reform until then. However, if Democrats control all 3 power sources come January 2021, public demands on them for far-reaching national health reform may well be overpowering. Continue reading “Health Reform Realism”

Revisiting the Land of the Individual Mandate

[This new commentary was just published by the Milbank Quarterly.]

The years 2013 through 2016 were excruciating for the Massachusetts Health Connector. In 2013, the Connector was among the nation’s most troubled federal/state health insurance exchanges, as it endured an epic collapse of its new website to help consumers purchase individual health insurance. Since then, it has taken a step-by-step and low-key “no news is good news” approach to rebuilding trust and credibility with its 252,000 clients.

Now the silent period is ending. In 2006, Massachusetts was the first and only state to enact an individual health insurance mandate, the essential model for the federal individual mandate included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 and implemented in 2014. In last December’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, President Trump and Congress neutered the ACA mandate by reducing the financial penalty to 0. Despite widespread reports to the contrary, the mandate was not repealed, and the law, with its mandatory reporting requirements, remains on the books.

Thus, Massachusetts now returns to the spotlight as the nation prepares to examine the impact of the federal action, testing 1 state’s experience against that of the other 49. In 2015, the last year for which tax data is publicly available, only 3% of adult tax filers in Massachusetts reported not having insurance meeting state standards, corroborating other data sources indicating that it has the lowest rate of uninsurance in any state (the most recent US Census data shows Massachusetts at 97.5% coverage). Depending on an uninsured person’s household income, the monetary penalty ranges between $21 and $96 for each month without coverage. As of early February, at least 9 other Democratic-leaning states are considering adopting a similar mandate. Continue reading “Revisiting the Land of the Individual Mandate”

A Bipartisan “What’s Next” for U.S. Health Reform

[This past week, I was one of the co-authors of a consensus policy paper on short-term steps that would stabilize the ACA health insurance marketplaces and address some other urgent health policy priorities such as reauthorization of the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The paper was authored by a group of 9 policy experts (5 on the Republican/conservative side and 4 on the Democratic/progressive side). While the ideas are not revolutionary, we show that bipartisan consensus is possible and offers hope for saner and more balanced policy — we hope! Here is the paper below:]

The Congressional effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has stalled, sparking urgent questions about what’s next and whether a bipartisan agreement could be achieved to address important U.S. health reform needs. We believe that critical matters relating to health reform must be addressed quickly and that bipartisan approaches are possible.

We are health policy analysts and advocates who join in this agreement. While we hold diverse political views and policy outlooks, we believe that health reform solutions exist that can transcend partisanship and ideology.

In this commentary, we describe our bipartisan agreement on five health policy matters that should be addressed by the end of the federal fiscal year, September 30. These recommendations are designed to provide stability in markets until a longer-term resolution can be achieved and, most importantly, to protect coverage and health care access for those relying on them now. Continue reading “A Bipartisan “What’s Next” for U.S. Health Reform”

MayDay! The ACA Is Still Alive and Still in Danger

Today is May Day and the ACA is still alive. Donald Trump’s campaign boast that he would sign a bill repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA/ObamaCare) on his inauguration day is long gone and forgotten. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s gamble that by April 28^th the ACA would be effectively decimated using the expedited budget reconciliation process proved to be a sucker’s bet.

Undeterred, White House and House operatives are trying by Wednesday to line up 216 votes—not to pass the Republicans’ American Health Care Act (AHCA) but to feign signs of progress to dampen the white-hot anger of the Republican base at their Party leaders’ inability to enact the ACA repeal promised since the law’s signing on March 23, 2010. They want to take a third run at it this week and perhaps succeed after two prior failures. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are crossing their fingers hoping that the House fails, sparing the upper chamber the funerary duties. For the Senate to advance ACA repeal now, a new and wholly unimagined bill would need to be constructed.

The level of legislative malpractice evidenced by Speaker Ryan and his team since January is staggering and perplexing. They designed a bill that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would cause 24 million Americans to lose health insurance. They advanced a proposal that provoked public opposition from the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, AARP, and hundreds of other national organizations representing Americans with serious stakes in our health care system. They invented a plan that generated unprecedented grassroots support for the ACA and fierce opposition aimed at them. For the first time, Ryan’s plan turned most Americans into ACA supporters. His legislation generated support from only 17% of Americans, an unheard of level of non-support.

Why did they do this and why do they persist?

Trump and Ryan both showed their hands in recent public statements linking ACA repeal with their tax cut agenda; Trump’s tax plan was released in one-page outline form this past week. To Republicans, the ACA’s poison is not the insurance expansion that bears remarkable resemblance to the two public health insurance programs they have always loved: Medicare Part C or Medicare Advantage, and Medicare Part D, the outpatient prescription drug benefit. Continue reading “MayDay! The ACA Is Still Alive and Still in Danger”

A Republican Path to ACA Reform

[This commentary, written by me and Dr. William Seligman of the Harvard Chan School, was published today on the Commonwealth Magazine website.]

IF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP and Congressional Republicans were to decide that fixing rather than destroying the Affordable Care Act, especially its private health insurance marketplaces, was in their self-interest, could they do it? And, could they do it in a way that aligns with Republican policy preferences?

The answer to both questions is “yes” – if Republicans heed lessons from their two favorite public health insurance programs. The programs are Medicare Part C, called Medicare Advantage, in which enrollees join private health insurance plans, and Medicare Part D, in which enrollees join private outpatient prescription drug plans.

While Republicans defend and brag about both of these reasonably successful programs, they may be surprised to learn that features of both point the way to successful stabilization and growth of the ACA’s private health insurance marketplaces. Here’s how.

Medicare Advantage: From Bust to Boom

Consider these two quotes:

“People’s premiums are going up 35, 45, 55 percent … The market is disastrous, insurers are leaving day by day, it’s going to absolutely implode.”

“They’re anguished, upset, frustrated and angry by the demise of their plans. … They’re facing increasing premiums and…plans are leaving the market.”

The first quote is President Trump talking recently about the instability of the ACA’s marketplaces. While most non-partisan observers disagree with the severity of his characterization, most – not all – of the federal, and some state, marketplaces are experiencing undeniable distress.

The second quote is from former congresswoman Nancy Johnson, a Connecticut Republican, talking in 2001 about the “Medicare + Choice” marketplace in which Medicare enrollees join a private health plan instead of participating in traditional fee-for-service Medicare (Parts A & B). Continue reading “A Republican Path to ACA Reform”

Health and Taxes and the Values at Stake in the ACA Debate

[This commentary was published this week on the website of the Milbank Quarterly.]

One of my favorite political scientists, Deborah Stone, wrote that much of the policy process involves debates about values masquerading as debates about numbers and facts.¹ Although her construct is abundantly in evidence, it is being overlooked in the current debate over the future of the Affordable Care Act.

How much are premiums rising? How many plans are operating in the exchanges? How much money are accountable care organizations saving? What impact would a per capita cap financing scheme have on Medicaid? How much has the ACA restrained or propelled health cost growth? What do opinion polls show?

Each side furiously hurls data and anecdotes at each other as if by identifying the killer data point, the other side would throw up its hands in surrender and declare: “How could we have been so dumb?” Of course, this never happens in public policy debates. It never happens because numbers and anecdotes don’t motivate people on an issue as charged as the ACA. Values do. Continue reading “Health and Taxes and the Values at Stake in the ACA Debate”

The State of Play Post-Trump/RyanCare

[This column is reprinted from the Commonwealth Magazine website.]

GLOBAL HEALTH EXPERT Michael Reich says that the acid test of any national health reform comes when a new national administration takes over. Only when a new president or prime minister assumes power can we judge the stability and staying power of any health system reform. In the US, that’s this moment. Since November 8, we’ve been learning what parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have staying power, which do not, and what’s uncertain.

Right now, after Friday’s demise of the Republican repeal and replace plan, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), we know that Medicare, Medicaid, insurance market reforms such as guaranteed issue, and delivery system reforms such as accountable care organizations look TrumpCare3

safe. We know that the private insurance coverage reforms – insurance exchanges, premium and cost-sharing subsidies, the individual mandate – are at risk and in danger even though they dodged full repeal with the AHCA’s demise. And we don’t know the fate of the ACA’s many tax increases. Let’s view these systematically. Continue reading “The State of Play Post-Trump/RyanCare”