Most Recent Email Update | protectourcareco

Most Recent News

Resources:

The Protect Our Care Campaign is growing! Other organizations can join online here.
We have added a few resources to the Protect Our Care Colorado Campaign Toolkit:
- Medicaid Fact Sheet
- Medicaid Talking Points from Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved.
Check out FamiliesUSA’s tool: 8 Ways to Judge Republican ACA Replacement Plans.

Upcoming Actions:

Join us at CCHI's annual Health Care Day of Action on February 23rd!
There will be a rally at the capitol as part of Health Care Day of Action. Activists that are not able to join for the entire day are encouraged to join the rally. RSVP here.
February 18-24 is a Congressional Recess and our Members of Congress are likely to be in Colorado.
- The Protect Our Care Colorado Campaign will be engaging Members of Congress when they are home. We need to keep calling their offices. Here are resources and phone numbers for calling.
February 21: Healthier Colorado Video Story Project: "Our Turn": Healthier Colorado is planning an online day of story sharing on February 21. For more info, contact Kate at Healthier Colorado. kstigberg@healthiercolorado.org.

The Latest on the ACA in Congress:

The GOP has released a policy brief on repealing and replacing the ACA. This is far from coming up with a full replacement plan. This document does not provide full legislative language or details, but it is clear that significant action is fast approaching. Debate on the repeal is likely to start the week of Feb. 27th, following the congressional recess. The policy brief outlines repealing the major components of the ACA and highlights 4 components that are likely to be included in a repeal bill as a "replacement" plan: 1) expansion of Health Savings Acounts, 2) creation of high risk pools, 3) some form of tax credits to purchase insurance, but likely significantly smaller than the credits that are currently available, and most alarming 4) turning Medicaid into a block or per capita cap program. This press release from the national group Community Catalyst and another from FamiliesUSA provide a response to the GOP brief.

“The latest GOP ‘plan’ would be terrible for consumers. It includes a decrease in tax credits, an expansion of health savings accounts that benefit the wealthy, and money for failed high-risk pools to take care of the sick. While the plan lacks many essential details, it is clear that Republicans’ overarching goal is to increase taxes and cut benefits for working families while shifting costs onto states and health care providers. The ‘plan’ also proposes a radical restructuring of Medicaid that will hurt seniors, children, low- and middle-income families and people living with disabilities. It also effectively ends Medicaid expansion by repealing the extra funding available to states that closed the coverage gap.”

- Community Catalyst

While this brief moves things closer toward repealing the Affordable Care Act, there continues to be disarray on “repeal and replace.” the "Freedom Caucus" in the House may have thrown yet another wrench into the repeal and replace efforts. This week 40 members of the Freedom Caucus voted to "support only an Obamacare repeal that is at least as aggressive as a bill the House and Senate passed in 2015." This means that they may not be in favor of less aggressive repeal plans that may be considered, and that they are more in favor of a straight repeal through reconciliation without any replacement language. It’s unclear how this Freedom Caucus vote might affect the “plan” outlined in the GOP policy brief.

We must continue to share messages of how the ACA has helped Colorado, individual consumers, and our economy.

CMS Proposed Rules for "Market Stabilization":

Also, as you may have heard, CMS (Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services) released proposed rules for "Market Stabilization." This proposed rule is the first potential administrative change to how the ACA works. Here are the major things this rule would do:

Changes to Special Enrollment Periods (SEPs) - Increased verification/documentation would be required for consumers to qualify for an SEP and enroll in coverage.
Guaranteed Availability of Coverage - This would allow insurers to charge consumers for "past debt" owed from unpaid premiums in the previous year before being able to enroll in a plan.
Changes to "de Minimis" range of plans - This would allow insurers to have greater flexibility to provide plans with lower actuarial values (i.e. how much an insurer pays vs. what the consumer pays) and potentially cover less care. This would shift costs to consumers. This is also concerning because it could mean that the 2nd to lowest silver level plan, which is the basis for tax credit calculations, could be artificially lowered, diminishing the amount of tax credits available and increasing costs for consumers.
Open Enrollment Period - The rule proposes to shorten open enrollment by half to 45 days from Nov. 1-Dec. 15th. giving consumers less time to select and enroll in coverage.
Network Adequacy - The rule would decrease federal involvement in evaluating insurance networks for adequacy, relying on State level reviews, and potentially weaken standards for inclusion of "Essential Community Providers."

We will be analyzing and submitting comments on these proposed rules as they could have significant negative impacts on consumers enrolling through the marketplace.

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