National Partnership for Women & Families Issues Public Comment on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Rule
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In particular, we would like to address the IFR's 60-day delay in implementation of the "Separate Billing Rule," a recently-released regulation that will require issuers on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) individual exchanges to bill separately for most abortion coverage, as well as require policy holders to pay for that coverage in separate transactions./2
To that end, we have been engaged in the legislative and rulemaking process surrounding the ACA, including rulemakings related to the implementation of the ACA's Section 1303, which permits private marketplace plans to cover abortion care but prevents issuers offering such plans in the individual market from paying for those services with federal dollars that are otherwise prohibited for spending on abortion.
The rule's harms will also fall disproportionately on people with low and moderate incomes, Black and Latina women, and immigrants.
I. ACCESS TO COMPREHENSIVE, AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE IS ESPECIALLY CRITICAL DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND RECESSION
ACA marketplaces offering individual health plans have helped reduce the number of uninsured people by making health insurance available to individuals and families who may not have access to a group-sponsored health plan or public insurance program. Federal subsidies have also helped to make those exchange plans more affordable for people with low and moderate incomes. As a result of the individual marketplaces and other ACA reforms, nearly nine in ten women between 19 and 64 were insured in 2018./4
And by the start of the 2020 Plan Year, 11.4 million people had enrolled in an individual-market exchange plan,/5 one-third of whom lived in states where one or more plans in the ACA marketplace include abortion coverage./6
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department has an obligation to take steps not just to maintain this level of coverage but to expand access, including for the newly uninsured population. To date, more than 2 million COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed in
The need to protect coverage during the pandemic is also critically important to minimizing the disproportionately negative effect that COVID-19 is having on Black and brown communities due to systemic racism and barriers to coverage and care./8
According to
Moreover, due to environmental racism and decades of neglect, communities of color are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions that raise the risk of developing severe COVID-19 symptoms, such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes./10
Maintaining and strengthening coverage through the individual marketplaces is also crucial for individuals who have so far been healthy but are suffering the economic impact of what has now officially become a
Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 40 million people have lost their jobs./12
For these newly unemployed individuals, ACA marketplaces offering individual plans provide a critical lifeline to health insurance.
Unemployed individuals who previously had employer-sponsored health coverage may seek an individual-market plan now because it is more affordable or accommodating than continuing group coverage under COBRA./13
And many unemployed people will turn to the exchanges mid-year because job loss is a basis for special enrollment in an ACA exchange throughout the plan year.
Furthermore, due to systemic structures that limit the ability of Black and brown people to access education and high-paying jobs, people of color make up the majority of low-wage earners economically harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic./14
In addition, although women make up nearly fifty percent of the workforce, they account for most of the job losses related to COVID-19./15
In this time of crisis, it is unconscionable that the Department is actively advancing a policy that will reduce access to care for all people, and especially for those who most need it now.
II. THE SIXTY-
In the original Separate Billing Rule, the Department significantly under-estimated the costs the rule would impose on both issuers and consumers. In this IFR, the Department anticipates that the rule's costs in the coming year will be lower than expected because of the sixty-day delay in implementation and asks commenters to help identify the value of those cost savings.
However, the
A. The Department must address the Separate Billing Rule's additional costs for consumers and patients if implemented during a pandemic and recession
In announcing the sixty-day implementation delay, the Department completely ignored the interests of consumers and patients and did not explain how they could possibly be prepared by
First, the Department concluded in
But millions of people have lost their jobs in the past few months, and many of those people will turn to the ACA's individual marketplaces to obtain health coverage. Accordingly, to assess the cost impact of a delay in implementation, the Department must recalculate the number of affected enrollees, which is likely to be far greater than the three million identified by the Department in the original rule.
Second, the IFR fails to account for the additional costs to consumers of implementing the Separate Billing Rule at a time when people are dealing with new and substantial upheaval in their lives - from COVID-19 infection, deaths of family members, job loss, loss of health insurance, an inability to obtain child care as schools and daycare centers are closed, potential eviction or other consequences from their inability to pay bills, and COVID-related changes in residence that may delay receipt of mail. The Department has acknowledged that the Separate Billing Rule will lead to inadvertent non-initiation and termination of coverage for some individuals confused about whether and how to pay the abortion-related portion of the premium./17
At a minimum, the Department must address the increased likelihood of these non-initiations and terminations among consumers whose lives have been further complicated by the pandemic and recession. It should also address the fact that lapses in health insurance coverage carry even greater potential for economic hardship today because of COVID-19 than they did when the Separate Billing Rule was adopted.
Third, in assessing delayed implementation, the Department must account for consumers' rising inability to weather premium increases at this time. The Department has conceded that the Separate Billing Rule is likely to result in increases of up to one percent annually for consumers./18
However, the COVID-19 pandemic is also likely to lead to premium increases as plans around the country experience deep losses attributable to the disease.
For example, in March, Covered California predicted that one-year projected costs in the commercial market, which includes individual insurance plans, would "range from
It concluded that premiums in individual and employer markets in 2021 "could be 40 percent or more solely because of these unexpected COVID-19 costs in the absence of federal action, as insurers would seek to recoup unplanned losses from 2020 and budget for pandemic-related costs in 2021."/20
Any consideration of implementing the Separate Billing Rule during the pandemic must consider the compounding effect of the rule's premium increases alongside COVID-related premium increases. Taken together, these increases are likely to impose even greater hardship on consumers and result in more enrollees dropping coverage or selecting cheaper plans that do not fully meet their needs.
Fourth, the Department must address the impact of implementing the Separate Billing Rule at a time when individuals' needs for comprehensive and affordable health care are increasing. Most obviously, any lapses in health insurance coverage caused by the Separate Billing Rule will have potentially catastrophic effects on the health and economic stability of individuals diagnosed with COVID-19. At least 700,000 people who have contracted COVID-19 reside in states whose individual marketplaces require plans to offer abortion coverage./21
Another 450,000 live in states that permit abortion coverage in their individual exchanges, and where one or more plans do in fact include that coverage./22
In total, more than half of all COVID-19 cases have occurred in states where at least one individual marketplace plan will be affected by the Separate Billing Rule./23
In addition, the Department must contend with the increasingly negative impact that the Separate Billing Rule will have on people in need of sexual and reproductive health care. As the
More recent data confirms ACOG's concerns. One new study conducted by the
It is more critical now than ever that people have access to health insurance that makes birth control and abortion affordable, yet the Department has acknowledged that some enrollees will lose their health insurance coverage because of the Separate Billing Rule./25
As the
Many people report that raising funds for their abortion delayed obtaining care./27
Such delay is likely to only exacerbate cost, as abortion care is more expensive later in pregnancy./28
In one study, the total out-of-pocket costs (including abortion and travel) of obtaining abortion care were equivalent to more than one-third of monthly personal income for more than half of participants./29
Those numbers are undoubtedly amplified in an economic downturn like the one we are experiencing now.
For individuals for whom such costs are or become prohibitive, the negative impact of being unable to access abortion care is significant and long-lasting. Being denied a wanted abortion results in economic insecurity for women and their families for years to come, including nearly four-times-higher odds of being below the Federal Poverty Line./30
Women denied abortion care also report more chronic pain and rate their overall health as worse than those who are able to obtain abortions./31
Instead of addressing these harms, the Department has recognized that issuers may respond to the Separate Billing Rule by dropping abortion coverage from their plans, where permitted by state law, which will force people to pay out of pocket for this care/32 - or not get this needed care at all.
B. The Department must evaluate the costs to issuers and states of requiring implementation of the Separate Billing Rule during the pandemic and recession.
The Department's selection of a 60-day implementation delay is also at odds with the needs of issuers and states. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, most issuers would have needed far longer for implementation than the Separate Billing Rule or the IFR would provide.
In particular, issuer representatives explained that implementation in the middle of the 2020 plan year would increase consumer confusion and leave issuers without a sufficient amount of time to test new systems required to comply with the rule and to train customer service staff./35
The
Issuers also described the tasks necessary to ensure compliance with the rule, including "changes to nearly every aspect of the enrollment and billing processes to identify impacted enrollees, generate and send multiple accurate invoices, collect multiple payments, and reconcile payment amounts."/37
In the IFR, the Department stated that it was delaying implementation in light of the "immediate need for . . . issuers to devote resources to respond to" the emergency caused by the pandemic./38
The delay had the effect of providing issuers eight months, instead of six, to implement the Separate Billing Rule. This 60-day delay is not meaningfully different and still fails to address the challenges issuers face in implementing the rule to begin with, let alone in the middle of the pandemic. The majority of issuers will still be required to comply with the Separate Billing Rule in the middle of a plan year, which runs from
The Department must address the cost impact of requiring implementation by
That estimate likely undercounted the costs for compliance; but even assuming it was accurate when made, it is most certainly an underestimate now - even with the 60-day delay - because issuers and their vendors are also dealing with new IT and operational demands associated with the pandemic.
The IFR also failed to address the unique interests of state exchanges and agencies during this time; impacts to these stakeholders also bear on the costs associated with implementation of the Separate Billing Rule during the pandemic and recession. For example, the Department's IFR failed to acknowledge, much less contend with, critical points made in a letter from seven state attorneys general, all of whom urged the Department to delay implementation until the COVID-19 pandemic is contained and the economy has recovered./41
The attorneys general highlighted the experience of state health and insurance regulators to justify this delay, explaining that these civil servants are focused "on the mission-critical functions of assuring access to and maintenance of health coverage for treatment and testing of COVID-19."/42
At a minimum, the Department must explain how the imposition of the Separate Billing Rule on state exchanges and regulators at this time affects the Department's cost assessment involved in selecting the period of delayed implementation.
CONCLUSION
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Footnotes:
1/ See Medicare and Medicaid Programs, Basic Health Program, and Exchanges; Additional Policy and Regulatory Revisions in Response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and Delay of Certain Reporting Requirements for the Skilled Nursing Facility Quality Reporting Program, Interim Final Rule, 85 Fed. Reg. 27,550 (
2/ See
3/ One in four women in the
4/ Kaiser Family Found., Women's Health Insurance Coverage (2020), https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/fact-sheet/womenshealth-insurance-coverage-fact-sheet/.
5/ Kaiser Family Found., Marketplace Enrollment, 2020, https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/marketplaceenrollment/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D.
6/ Calculated by summing the marketplace enrollment numbers, Kaiser Family Found., supra note 4, for the states listed in notes 9 and 10, infra.
7/ See, e.g.,
8/ William J. Barber II & William J. Barber III, Racism and COVID-19 Are a Lethal Combination, The Nation,
9/ Ctrs. for Disease Control & Prevention, COVID-19 in Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups (
10/ Ctrs. for Disease Control & Prevention, People Who Are at Higher Risk for Severe Illness (
11/ Nat'l
12/
13/
14/
15/
16/ Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Exchange Program Integrity, Final Rule, 84 Fed. Reg. at 71,706.
17/ Id. at 71,686 (HHS conceding that "even with fulsome outreach and education efforts to explain the billing scheme to the policy holder, consumer confusion could still lead to inadvertent coverage losses."); see also id. at 71,703 (projecting annual issuer costs to manage "the grace period process for a higher volume of enrollees who enter a non-payment grace period," including costs related to carrying out "termination[s]" for non-payment).
18/ Id. at 71,701 (citing "[i]ncrease in premiums beginning in plan year 2021"); id. at 71,704.
19/ Covered Cal., Covered California Releases the First National Projection of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic's Cost to Millions of Americans With Employer or Individual Insurance Coverage (
20/ Id.
21/ Calculated by summing the case numbers as of
22/ Calculated by summing the case numbers as of
23/ Calculated by summing the case numbers as of
24/
25/ Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Exchange Program Integrity, Final Rule, 84 Fed. Reg. at 71,688.
26/ Lindberg et al., supra note 24.
27/ See
28/
29/ Roberts et al., supra note 27.
30/
31/
32/ Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Exchange Program Integrity, Final Rule, 84 Fed. Reg. at 71,705.
33/ BCBSA Comment at 4 (
34/ AHIP Comment at 11 (
35/ See, e.g., AHIP Comment at 11; BCBSA Comment at 5.
36/ NAIC Comment at 1 (
37/ 84 Fed. Reg. at 71,697.
38/ 85 Fed. Reg. at 27,599; see also id. at 27,600.
39/ 85 Fed. Reg. at 27,599.
40/ Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Exchange Program Integrity, Final Rule, 84 Fed. Reg. at 71,689; id. at 71,697.
41/ See Att'y Gen. of N.Y., et al., Letter, IFR-AR 000153-56.
42/ Id. at 3, IFR-AR 000155; see also ACOG Letter at 1, IFR-AR 000157 (explaining that the rule would "increase costs to states ... during this public health crisis").
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The rule can be viewed at: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=CMS-2020-0047-0001
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