Schrader Leads House Dems in Calling on Speaker Ryan to Stabilize the Individual Market
Reps.
"We strongly support the Affordable Care Act [which helps millions of families purchase affordable health coverage, and helps keep out of pocket costs low]," the members wrote. "The individual market, accounting for seven percent of health care enrollees nationwide, needs improvement.
The letter goes on to outline the bipartisan solutions to stabilize the market that were unveiled less than two weeks ago, including:
1. Reauthorizing and making permanent federal reinsurance programs.
2. Funding the Cost-Sharing Reduction Subsidies (CSR).
3. Getting more people covered, and ensuring participation.
4. Ensuring quality affordable options exist.
These solutions mirror those laid out in Solutions Over Politics, a five-part proposal that Reps. Schrader,
In total the letter was signed by 89 Members, including: Reps.
Read the full letter below:
The Honorable
Speaker of the
H-232, The
We strongly support the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and oppose any effort to repeal it. While we know you and many in your conference disagree with us, we believe there is a significant point of agreement. The individual market, accounting for seven percent of health care enrollees nationwide, needs improvement.
We are ready to work with you in a bipartisan manner to stabilize and improve the individual market.
The Challenge to the Individual Market
When the ACA markets opened in 2014, it was a challenge for insurers to price their products. They had little claims data on and experience with an expanded group of customers with which to make actuarially accurate predictions.
The risk mitigation programs in the ACA, which subsidize high cost enrollees, were largely successful in addressing the early pricing challenges, helping ease the adjustment period in the individual market. The risk corridor program, designed to address uncertainty in the insurance pool, encountered funding issues.
According to nonpartisan analysis, individual markets began to stabilize between 2015 and early 2017, but face issues in 2018 largely due to policy uncertainty. While we may disagree on why this is the case, the fact remains our constituents would benefit from bipartisan Congressional action to bring long-term stability and predictability to the individual market.
What Congress Can Do
These policies include:
1. Reauthorizing and making permanent federal reinsurance programs.
These programs provide a backstop against high cost medical claims while also reducing premiums in the individual and small group markets.
A recent analysis cited by
Funding the Cost-Sharing Reduction Subsidies (CSR).
The ACA helps millions of families purchase affordable health coverage, and helps keep out of pocket costs low through the cost sharing reduction payments. These payments reduce copays and deductibles for lower and middle-income families across the country. A
We should put this uncertainty to rest. While a simple administrative directive affirming current law could return markets to stability,
1. Getting more people covered, and ensuring participation.
The broader the participation in the health insurance market, the better it is for all citizens and health plans.
All Americans will face significant health issues at some point in their lives, so we must ensure that they are covered and contribute to the insurance market. The ACA requires them to come into the market and take responsibility for their health. We support those requirements; however we recognize there are other ways to meet this goal. Some have suggested auto-enrollment or affordable plans for young people that maintain the protections offered by the ACA.
1. Ensuring quality affordable options exist.
We must continue our efforts to make health coverage more affordable for all Americans, while retaining the critical benefits that families rely on when a loved one is sick. We can do so by expanding premium assistance to directly bring down the cost of insurance. We are willing to explore options to target this assistance by age and geography as well as income.
In addition, we support providing some enrollees the option to buy in to Medicare as they approach retirement age, allowing for additional affordable and reliable options through traditional Medicare and
There are other practical improvements we can make to the ACA. These include taking steps to increase competition where insurer participation is low, reducing churn in the market, and providing clear guidelines for state innovation waivers that maintain the ACA's quality standards. And where improvements to the ACA require funding, we are prepared to work with you to identify offsets to pay for them.
The cost of stabilizing the individual market is modest while the benefit to the American people is great. The only way to productively solve these challenges is by working together. We are ready to work with you and the Republican conference.
Read this original document at: https://schrader.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=390898
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