Question: Where oh where is the republican healthcare plan that they've been working on for almost 8 years?
Their plans are so bad they can't even pass it among themselves. The House version had a 17% approval rating.
Truth is, republicans don't give a fuck about healthcare. Their plan was nothing more than armed robbery. Under the guise of 'healthcare' the plan was to rob Medicaid to enrich politicians and the rich. Now where are they going to steal the money from?
Try this ..
Forbes: So Much For Obamacare's 'Death Spiral' As Insurers Look To Expand
April 30, 2017
Improving profits of health insurance companies that continue to offer individual policies on public exchanges have some plans looking at expanding for 2018 and beyond.
But those plans will be thwarted if the Republican-led Congress and the Donald Trump administration end subsidies critical to the ability of millions of Americans to get lower-cost care. For expansion to occur, Trump and the GOP would have to fund cost-sharing reductions used to help low-income Americans get lower copayments and deductibles.
Several insurers that have continued to offer health insurance products on public exchanges--even as Aetna AET +1.02%, UnitedHealth Group UNH +0.66% and Humana HUM -0.06% have scaled back--say they are so far performing well in 2017. And continuing the cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) would add to that momentum and help avoid another round of large premium increases in 2018.
Centene CNC +2.01%, which has made headlines as the only insurer on exchange in Maricopa County, Arizona, has increased its ACA membership on the health insurance marketplaces to nearly 1.2 million from 683,000 at this time last year.
"We are evaluating other markets to expand in,"*Centene CEO Michael Neidorff told analysts on last week’s first-quarter earnings call. “I see nothing out there that's going to change it to where we would not participate.*As it moves along, we always look at adding.”
Trump has threatened to cut off funding for cost-sharing reductions and it remains unclear whether or how they will be funded amid current battles over the budget. Congress agreed Friday to fund the government another week even as Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Trump White House struggled to get enough votes from their own party to pass a repeal of the ACA and replace it with the American Health Care Act, also known as Trumpcare.
But insurers are more concerned in the near term about the CSRs, which can contribute significant savings for Americans in the individual market. In California, for example, those with individual policies spent “$2,500 less on care in 2015” before the ACA brought Americans coverage on public exchanges in 2013, according to the California Health Care Foundation.
Several Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans have said they will have the ability to offer more and better products for 2018 if there is clarity to future funding. Already, the Trump administration has made some improvements to the ACA through executive actions under a so-called “market stabilization rule.”
“We are pleased that some steps have been taken to address the sustainability of the market, such as addressing the risk adjustment formula in 2018 and verification of eligibility requirements for special enrollment period members on the federal exchanges,” Joe Swedish, CEO of Anthem ANTM +0.81%, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 14 states, told analysts last week on the company’s first-quarter earnings call. Anthem ended the first quarter with 1.1. million members in its plans purchased on individual public exchanges.
If CSRs aren’t funded, insurance companies are giving the Trump White House and GOP Congress ownership of Obamacare’s future.
“At this point, we plan to file preliminary 2018 rates with the assumption that the cost sharing reduction subsidies will be funded,” Swedish said. “However, we are notifying to our states that, if we do not have certainty that CSRs will be funded for 2018 by early June, we will need to evaluate appropriate adjustments to our filing. Such adjustments could include reducing service area participation, requesting additional rate increases, eliminating certain product offerings or exiting certain individual ACA-compliant markets altogether.”
Another large player on public exchanges also issued a warning to Congress and the White House, making clear the CSRs benefit patients and medical providers and not the insurance industry.
“If the CSR funding continues, we intend to maintain our participation in the marketplace for 2018,” Mario Molina, CEO of Molina Healthcare , wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders last week. Molina has more than one million enrollees in individual plans purchased on public exchanges.
“This money goes directly to providers from the health plan,” Molina said. “Any of the CSR money that goes unused is returned to the federal government. Thus, this is not a bailout or windfall to the insurance company.”
Despite the vitriol among Republicans about the Affordable Care Act, insurers see bipartisan support for continuing cost-sharing reductions.
“We’re convinced there is bipartisan support for the CSRs because nobody wants to take this population and put them on the street,” Centene CEO Neidorff said. “Effectively, doing away with the CSRs would eliminate the affordability of the product for many. I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucej...al-as-insurers-look-to-expand/2/#30f8143a3969
Any questions?
