First of all, I must yell and scream at the idiots in the States, you know who you are, that have or are in the process of passing the most restrictive abortion bills. This is especially Alabama where Governor Kay Ivey signed the strictest anti-abortion law. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced in 16 states this year. The Alabama Senate approved a measure on last week that would outlaw almost all abortions in the state, setting up a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the case that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The legislation bans abortions at every stage of pregnancy and criminalizes the procedure for doctors, who could be charged with felonies and face up to 99 years in prison. It includes an exception for cases when the mother’s life is at serious risk, but not for cases of rape or incest — a subject of fierce debate among lawmakers in recent days. The House approved the measure — the most far-reaching effort in the nation this year to curb abortion rights and was just signed by the Governor.

What the heck are you thinking, not even for rape or incest? You are forgetting the women who bare the brunt of your idiot decisions. Do you think that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe versus Wade, passed in 1973? Get real and attend to the real multiple crises out there!

And diversity scores on the SAT exams??? Again, what are you all thinking? I know to correct the “crises of rich parents who got their “unfortunate” children into the best of colleges. Next, the strategy to get our children into good colleges will be to take courses to improve their test-taking abilities, but now they will have to figure out how to improve their adversity scores. Mom and Dad, we need to move into the ghettos of Scarsdale, get on food stamps, get fired from your high paying jobs and become homeless. I know this all sounds crazy, but that is where we are.

Shelby Livingston wrote that the health insurance inflation rate hit a five-year peak in April, possibly because managed care is rising.

The Consumer Price Index for health insurance in April spiked 10.7% over the previous 12 months—the largest increase since at least April 2014, according to a Modern Healthcare analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ unadjusted monthly Consumer Price Index data.

In contrast, the other categories that make up the medical care services index—professional services and hospital and related services—rose 0.4% and 1.4% in April, respectively. The CPI for medical care services in April rose 2.3%, while overall inflation increased 2% year over year.

Because of the way the BLS calculates the health insurance index, the change year over year does not reflect premiums paid by customers, but “retained earnings” after paying out claims. These earnings are used to cover administrative costs or are kept as profit.

The BLS redistributes the benefits paid out a portion of the health insurance index to other non-insurance medical care categories, such as physician services.

The likely reason health insurance inflation is rising is because of growth in managed care, including Medicare Advantage, Medicaid managed care and commercial insurance, according to Paul Hughes-Cromwick, an economist at Altarum. He noted that added administrative costs increase insurance price growth.

Hughes-Cromwick said the increase in the health insurance index could also be driven by the fact that insurers’ medical loss ratios may be decreasing as high premiums, particular in the individual health insurance exchanges, exceeded anticipated claims.

The medical loss ratio reflects the percentage of every premium dollar spent on medical claims and quality improvement. Insurers must pay at least 80% of premiums on those things and if they don’t, they must issue rebates to plan members, as part of the Affordable Care Act.

In response to rising inflation, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s biggest lobbying group, commented that “consumers deserve the lowest possible total costs for their coverage and care.” She pointed out the medical loss ratio requirements and said health insurers spend 98 cents of every premium dollar on medical care, operating costs that include care management, and preventing fraud, waste, and abuse.

Affordable Care Act exchange insurers hiked premiums higher than necessary in 2018 and now expect to pay out $800 million in rebates to individual market customers this year because they did not meet the medical loss ratio threshold, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis published this month. Because medical loss ratios are declining, health insurers in the individual, small group and large group markets expect to issue $1.4 billion in rebates based on their 2018 performance, the analysis stated.

Still, health insurance profits have been on the rise. The eight largest publicly traded insurers posted net income of $9.3 billion in the first quarter of 2019, an increase of 29.9%. They made a combined $21.9 billion in profits over the course of 2018.

Medicaid waiver loophole sparks transparency concerns

Robert King noted that the CMS is doing a poor job in ensuring the public knows about major changes to Medicaid, including the installation of work requirements, a federal watchdog said Friday.

The Government Accountability Office’s report found that the CMS has limited transparency for amendments to existing Section 1115 waivers. That has allowed some states to score approval for their work requirements while skirting some rules, such as projecting how the changes will impact Medicaid enrollment.

The government watchdog noted that two of the four states it studied did not seek public comment on changes that could significantly impact Medicaid beneficiaries.

The transparency requirements for an amendment are more relaxed than a new waiver application, the GAO said. Arkansas and New Hampshire both added work requirements to their Medicaid programs through amendments to their existing Section 1115 waivers.

Currently, new waivers or extension requests must include whether the state thinks that enrollment will decrease and any spending changes. While amendments must address the impact on beneficiaries and explain the changes, there are fewer requirements for what information must be disseminated to the public.

The GAO also found that the CMS had inconsistent transparency requirements for amendments.

For example, the CMS determined Massachusetts’ amendment to waive non-emergency medical transportation was incomplete because the application didn’t include a revised design plan. However, the CMS-approved Arkansas’ work requirement amendment even though it did not include a revised design plan.

The GAO recommended that the CMS develop standard transparency requirements for new waivers, extension requests, and significant Section 1115 amendments.

In response, HHS said it has already implemented policies to improve transparency. GAO said those changes “do not apply to amendments.”

The CMS also lacks policies for ensuring that major changes to a pending application are transparent.

The report comes as the Trump administration is appealing a federal judge’s decision to strike down Medicaid work requirement programs in Kentucky and Arkansas.

Seven other states have received CMS approval for work requirements. Those states are Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Utah, and Wisconsin. Another six states—Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia—have applications pending federal approval.

Industry enters new battle phase over surprise billing

Susannah Luthi reported that the knives are out over legislation to end surprise medical bills and specifics haven’t even been unveiled yet. But will this solve the problems of the healthcare crisis?

The industry is pushing back hard against a particular principle laid out by President Donald Trump last week.

The administration wants all out-of-network charges from a doctor at an in-network hospital to be wrapped into a single bill from the hospital.

How this provision will technically play out in policy is yet to be seen, as the Senate health committee plans to release its legislative package on surprise medical bills this summer.

But the administration’s position has roiled hospital groups and specialty physicians like emergency doctors, radiologists, and anesthesiologists, who don’t always share the same insurance network as hospitals and have higher than average charges.

“Untested proposals such as bundling payments would create significant disruption to provider networks and contract without benefiting patients,” American Hospital Association CEO Rick Pollack said in a statement shortly after Trump made his remarks. He reiterated the AHA’s position that all Congress needs to do is enact a ban on balance billing and leave the rest to the industry to figure out.

Specialty physicians argue that a single bill will complicate all the billing processes on the back-end with hospitals and insurers.

Dr. Sherif Zaafran, a Texas anesthesiologist, said he doesn’t see room within the White House framework for a policy he could support. He sees it as undercutting specialty physicians’ independence from hospitals. “As a patient, I think a single hospital bill on the surface sounds really good, but in the reality of how most of us practice it’s probably not very practical,” Zaafran said. “A single bill would imply you’re marrying the system for how a physician gets paid with other components that bill completely separately.”

He expects a resulting policy would end up cutting pay for both hospitals and ancillary physicians—hospitals taking a hit as they try to collect the fee and reimburse the physician, and physicians taking a hit if hospitals need to negotiate with insurers on their behalf.

“There are downstream effects that folks haven’t thought through,” Zaafran said.

But the administration’s stance shows how thinking around policy has morphed during months of scrutiny of the issue. And analysts have been documenting the trajectory of high ancillary physician charges in part to lay out the argument for payment bundles.

Discussions started last fall with an initial legislative push from a bipartisan group led by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.). Cassidy and his co-sponsors introduced a draft proposal to cap out-of-network charges at a regional average. Not long after, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) pitched arbitration to settle disputes between insurers and providers.

As the months passed, the debate transitioned into a look at the underlying contracts between hospitals and insurers—even as policy analysts note that the problem of surprise medical bills is limited to a small number of hospitals.

Experts and economists from think tanks like the Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, and the Urban Institute have weighed in, aided by data from states that have tried to curb the practice in the individual insurance markets that fall under their regulating power.

Several have warned that if lawmakers don’t handle the policy carefully, they could end up inflating overall costs, leading to higher premiums and expenses in an already costly system.

Joyce Frieden pointed out the solutions proposed by the President and hopefully most of the GOP.  President Trump announced an initiative Thursday aimed at ending the problem of surprise medical billing, in which patients undergoing procedures at in-network hospitals receive unexpectedly high bills because one or more of their clinicians was out of network.

Trump called surprise billing as I just outlined, “one of the biggest concerns Americans have about healthcare” and added, “The Republican Party is very much becoming the party of healthcare. We’re determined to end surprise medical billing for American patients and that’s happening right now.” He thanked the mostly Republican group of lawmakers who came to the White House to discuss the initiative, including Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.), and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and representatives Kevin Brady (R-Texas), Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and Greg Walden (R- Ore.).

Trump then announced guidelines that the White House wants Congress to use in developing surprise billing legislation. They include:

• In emergency care situations, patients should never have to bear the burden of out-of-network costs they didn’t agree to pay. “So-called ‘balance billing’ should be prohibited for emergency care. Pretty simple,” he said

•  When patients receive scheduled non-emergency care, they should be given a clear and honest bill up front. “This means they must be given prices for all services and out-of-pocket payments for which they will be responsible,” Trump said. “This will not just protect Americans from surprise charges, it will [also] empower them to choose the best option at the lowest possible price”
•  Patients should not receive surprise bills from out-of-network providers that they did not choose themselves. “Very unfair,” he commented
•  Legislation should protect patients without increasing federal healthcare expenditures. “Additionally, any legislation should lead to greater competition, more choice, and more healthcare freedom. We want patients to be in charge and in total control,” the president said
•  All types of health insurance — large groups, small groups, and patients on the individual market should be included in the legislation. “No one in America should be bankrupted unexpectedly by healthcare costs that are absolutely out of control,” said Trump

He noted that “we’re going to be announcing something over the next 2 weeks that’s going to bring transparency to all of it. I think in a way it’s going to be as important as a healthcare bill; it’s going to be something really special.”

Also at the announcement was Martin Makary, MD, MPH, a surgical oncologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “When someone buys a car, they don’t pay for the steering wheel separately from the spark plugs,” he said. “Yet, in healthcare, surprise bills and overpriced bills are commonplace and are crushing everyday folks … People are getting hammered right now.”

Trump also introduced two families who had experienced high medical bills. Drew Calver, of Austin, Texas, said that after a heart attack 2 years ago, “although I had insurance, I was still billed $110,000 … I feel like I was exploited at the most vulnerable time in my life just having suffered a heart attack, so I hope Congress hears this call to take action, close loopholes, end surprise billing, and work toward transparency.”

Paul Davis, MD, of Findlay, Ohio, said that his daughter was billed nearly $18,000 for a urine drug screening test. “She had successful back surgery in Houston and at a post-op visit, because she was given a prescription for narcotic pain relief — which she used as directed — the doctor said, ‘Oh, by the way, I’d like to get a urine specimen.’ Fine; she did it. A year later, a bill showed up for $17,850.”

He noted that her insurance company’s Explanation of Benefits said that the insurer would have paid $100.92 for the test had it been done by an in-network provider. “This type of billing is all too common … The problem of improper billing affects most [of] those who can afford it least. We must put aside any differences we have to work together to solve this problem.”

“Today I’m asking Democrats and Republicans to work together; Democrats and Republicans can do this and I really think it’s something [that is] going to be acted on quickly,” Trump said.

Healthcare groups responded positively to the announcement, with one caveat. “The AHA commends the Administration and Congress for their work to find solutions to this problem,” Rick Pollack, president, and CEO of the American Hospital Association (AHA), said in a statement. “The AHA has urged Congress to enact legislation that would protect patients from surprise bills. We can achieve this by simply banning balance billing. … Untested proposals such as bundling payments would create significant disruption to provider networks and contracting without benefiting patients.”

“ACEP appreciates the White House weighing in on this important issue and welcomes congressional action to address surprise medical bills,” said Vidor Friedman, MD, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), in a statement. “Emergency physicians strongly support taking patients out of the middle of billing disputes between insurers and out-of-network medical providers.”

“ACEP is concerned about the administration’s call for a single hospital bill,” he continued. “Such a ‘bundled payment’ approach may seem simple in theory for voluntary medical procedures. But if applied to the unpredictable nature of emergency care, this untested idea opens the door to massive and costly disruption of the health care system that would shift greater costs to patients while failing to address the actual root cause of surprise bills — inadequate networks provided by insurers.”

The president also mentioned another one of his administration’s healthcare initiatives. “We may allow states to buy drugs in other countries … because the drug companies have treated us very, very unfairly and the rules and restrictions within our country have been absolutely atrocious,” he said. “So we’ll allow [states], with certain permission, to go to other countries if they can buy them for 40%, 50%, or 60% less. It’s pretty pathetic, but that’s the way it works.”

And now back to Medicare. As you all probably remember the reason that physicians decided not to support the national plan was the confusion regarding reimbursement or payment to physicians. But the insurance companies as well as organized labor who opposed the compulsory system on the grounds that its passage would deprive the labor movement of an extremely effective issue with which to organize workers.

Also, with the entry of America into the First World War the interest in the passage of a compulsory health care bill waned. Because of the anti-German hysteria, the AALL bill opposition became more organized with the biased thoughts that mandatory health insurance was the product of a German conspiracy to impose Prussian values on America.

Renewed interest in mandatory health insurance didn’t emerge until during the New Deal as a consequence of the report of the Committee on Economic Security, the committee appointed by President Roosevelt in 1934. As the Depression worsened the President and his advisors were eager to offer an alternative social welfare package. Roosevelt and his advisors particularly those of the Committee on Economic Security advised the passage of a comprehensive social security system to include unemployment insurance, old-age security, and government-administered-health-care insurance.

The final report by the Committee on the Costa of Medical Care was issued in 1932, by the Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur who was the former Secretary of the Interior and former President of the AMA. The Committee actually concluded that the infrastructure in medicine as well as the medical services in the United States were inadequate and made recommendations for changes. And, despite the favorable climate especially among labor leaders, politicians and social scientists the President’s Committee on Economic Security recommender unemployment insurance and social security but not the passage of a mandatory health insurance bill.

But Roosevelt wanted to keep the subject of health insurance and therefore established an Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities immediately following the passage of the Social Security Act and ordered his staff to keep the subject out there before the public. Over the next few years it was the subject of many books and extensive studies by the federal government, but no bill yet.

More to come!!