Facts disappoint both sides of the reform debate

Survey of Non-Group Health Insurance Enrollees

By Liz Hamel, Mira Rao, Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton, Cynthia Cox, Karen Pollitz and Mollyann Brodie
Kaiser Family Foundation, June 19, 2014

The Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Non-Group Health Insurance Enrollees is the first in a series of surveys taking a closer look at the entire non-group market. This first survey was conducted from early April to early May 2014, after the close of the first ACA open enrollment period. It reports the views and experience of all non-group enrollees, including those with coverage obtained both inside and outside the Exchanges, and those who were uninsured prior to the ACA as well as those who had a previous source of coverage (non-group or otherwise).

• The ACA motivated many non-group enrollees to get coverage, and nearly six in ten Exchange enrollees were previously uninsured
• Enrollees in ACA-compliant plans report somewhat worse health than those in pre-ACA plans
• Majority gives positive ratings to their new insurance plans and says they are a good value, though four in ten find it difficult to afford their monthly premium
• Among plan switchers, as many report paying less as paying more for their new plans, but survey shows some signs of a trend toward narrower provider networks
• Plan switchers are less likely to be satisfied with plan costs, maybe because half of them report having their previous plan cancelled
• Half got help with enrollment; most say the shopping process was easy, but a third say it was difficult to set up a Marketplace account
• In the non-group market, those most likely to feel they have benefited from the ACA are people getting subsidies, those most likely to feel negatively impacted are those who had their plans cancelled

As a whole, non-group enrollees are more likely than the public overall to have a favorable view of the ACA – they are roughly evenly split between positive and negative views (47 percent favorable, 43 percent unfavorable), while views among 18-64 year-olds nationally are more negative than positive (38 percent favorable, 46 percent unfavorable1. Like it is nationally, opinion of the ACA among non-group enrollees is strongly divided along party lines. About equal shares of non-group enrollees feel their families have benefited (34 percent) and been negatively affected (29 percent) by the ACA. However, these averages mask substantial differences within the non-group market. Those who are most likely to feel they have benefited from the law are people receiving government financial assistance for Exchange plan premiums (60 percent benefited), while those most likely to feel they have been negatively affected by the law are people who experienced a plan cancellation in the past year (57 percent negatively affected).

http://kff.org/private-insurance/report/survey-of-non-group-health-insur...

Does the Affordable Care Act Cover the Uninsured?

By Drew Altman
The Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2014

Among the facts: 57% of those who bought coverage from the new marketplaces during the first ACA open-enrollment period were previously uninsured, and seven out of 10 of them had been uninsured for two years or more.

The number of uninsured people covered through the exchanges is far higher than critics of the ACA have suggested. On the other hand, the number is probably a little lower than supporters of the health-care law would like. As is typical in the highly polarized debate about the ACA, the facts are not what either side would want them to be.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/19/does-the-affordable-care-act-co...

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

It is ironic that we have a health reform program that satisfies neither proponents nor opponents. On the question of how effective has the Affordable Care Act been in insuring those who were previously uninsured, supporters are concerned that it was not enough and critics are disappointed to see that more people became insured under the program than had been insured under prior plans (since that refutes their argument that the exchanges are ineffective because it only shifted previously insured individuals into the exchanges).

WSJ’s Drew Altman makes the point that “in the highly polarized debate about the ACA, the facts are not what either side would want them to be.”

So is this a balanced debate between two sides with legitimate views? Opponents would like to see much of the Act repealed, but the few recommendations they do have, they can’t even agree on. Besides, most of their recommendations would not repair the flaws in our health care system, and some would make them worse.

Supporters at least want to see improvements in coverage, access and affordability, not to mention quality, but they realize that ACA is falling far short of goals (though they may not want to admit it) and has actually had a negative impact in lowering the actuarial value of plans - making health care less affordable for many by increasing out-of-pocket costs - while also reducing access by paring down the numbers of physicians and hospitals in the insurers’ provider networks.

We can reject the views of those polarized against reform as not being responsive to our overpriced and underperforming health care system.

Although we support the views of those who would repair the flaws, we can reject the policies they have selected as being cruelly inadequate. Those who really do want reform should join us in supporting single payer - a model that would be truly universal, accessible, affordable, and, properly designed, would improve the quality of health care in the United States. In fact, many of the current opponents might consider supporting a program that actually would work, especially if they see that it would not increase overall spending. We should tell them about it.