Tag: ACA

The fate of the Affordable Care Act was back in federal court today after a lower court judge ruled the law unconstitutional. If the ruling is upheld, the entire United States healthcare system would undergo massive changes. In Charleston, supporters of the Affordable Care Act held a mock trial in front of Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office in support of the law.

Morrisey is one of 20 Republican state attornies general and governors who filed a legal case last year arguing that the Affordable Care Act was unlawful. A lower court judge ruled in their favor. Today, that case is up for appeal.  

In response, about 14 ACA advocates gathered outside Patrick Morrisey’s office at the capitol to hold a “mock trial.” 

“Witnesses” were called up to testify about what losing the Affordable Care Act would mean to them. 

The event was sponsored by two community advocacy groups: West Virginia Citizen Action and Rise Up.

The groups are concerned that if the federal ruling is upheld, people with preexisting conditions could lose coverage, preventative care services may no longer be covered and Medicaid expansion could be rolled back. 

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.

The health research organization The Commonwealth Fund released state fact sheets this week showing changes over time in the percentage of uninsured adults, and enrollment in marketplace plans and Medicaid, among other things. 

The report outlined the changes to health care coverage and access since the inception of the Affordable Care Act.

In West Virginia, the number of uninsured adults went from 23 percent in 2010, to 9 percent in 2017. For the same time period, the number of adults who went without care because of cost fell from 24 to 18 percent.

More than half a million people – about a third of the population – are on Medicaid. And more than 27,000 people got coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces – 86 percent of those received financial assistance for their coverage.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

An analysis of 130 metropolitan areas found that Appalachia has some of the highest rates of pre-existing health conditions in the nation. The report comes in the midst of continued federal proposals to weaken pre-existing condition requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

Among other things, the ACA guaranteed people access to insurance regardless of how healthy they are. Prior to the ACA, insurance companies could decline to provide insurance to people with type two diabetes or cancer, for instance.

In 2017, the Trump administration attempted to repeal and replace the ACA. Those efforts failed. Now, efforts are underway to expand the availability of short-term insurance plans, which are not required to follow any of the ACA’s requirements, including covering people with pre-existing conditions. These plans tend to be cheaper than regular insurance, but don’t cover as much.

A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of metropolitan areas found that 27% of adults ages 18-64 (52 million people) have a pre-existing condition that would have led to a denial of insurance in the individual market before the ACA. Those numbers are much higher in Appalachia with 38 percent of residents in Charleston, WV, 35 percent in Ashland, Kentucky, 41 percent in Bristol Tennessee/Virginia and 31 percent in Martinsburg reporting preexisting conditions.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces fell in most states across the country in the past year, including West Virginia, while 15 states saw enrollment increases, according to a new Urban Institute report. But West Virginia and Louisiana had the MOST significant drops at almost 20 percent and 24 percent fewer enrollees, respectively.

The drop can likely be contributed to four things, said Urban Institute research associate Becky Peters: funding cuts to advertising about the ACA, the influx of short-term, limited care plans, a shortened enrollment period and higher premiums.

“The bottom line is that health insurance is expensive in West Virginia,” she said. “And for people who are maybe deciding between whether to spend $500, $600 on a health insurance policy or meet their other basic needs, I think some folks were really in a tough position this year.”

Additionally, marketing funding cuts contributed to widespread confusion about what exactly was going on with the ACA.

“Not just consumers, frankly policy makers were confused also,” said Peters. “Folks were unsure if their plans were going to be available again this year, maybe they had heard that premiums were going up and they didn’t know how they were going to afford it. They didn’t know when to sign up and then a lot of people weren’t sure if they needed insurance at all. They’d heard the individual mandate had been repealed and they thought maybe they didn’t need to get insurance this year.”

Peters said it’s hard to quantify how much the confusion affected enrollment, but it certainly didn’t help.

Health policy analysts weren’t surprised by the drop in enrollment – the Trump Administration openly does not support the ACA – but the drop in enrollment in ACA plans will likely coincide with a rise in enrollment in short-terms plans that are cheaper but don’t offer nearly as comprehensive coverage.

“These are plans that – they might look like a regular health insurance plan, but they don’t have all of the benefits that an ACA compliant plan would,” Peters said. “They’re really designed for people trying to fill short gaps in coverage so maybe between jobs or something.”

While these plans are a lot cheaper than ACA plans, she said, they don’t cover much and might exclude preexisting conditions.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

A new health care bill to replace the Affordable Care Act was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate. The bill would fundamentally alter Medicaid financing and reduce federal spending for health coverage, according to a new analysis released today by the nonpartisan think tank Kaiser Family Foundation.

Among other things, the bill would repeal Medicaid expansion – a program impacting around 175,000 West Virginians. Medicaid expansion would be replaced with a new capped block grant program. That program would significantly limit the total amount of money states receive from the federal government.

The KFF analysis found that nationwide, federal funding for health coverage would decrease by $160 billion from 2020-2026. 35 states, including West Virginia, would see a loss in funding.

Advocates for the bill say states would have a lot more flexibility in how they use federal funds. 

The bill would, for example, allow states to roll back what are called “essential health benefits” and allow insurers to charge higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions.

The bill is moving quickly through the legislative process, but is facing considerable criticism from advocacy groups.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.