The Stimulus Package and Obama's Speech

Tonight, President Obama unveiled his vision for healthcare reform. As such, he referred to the successes thus far and his hopes for the future. As most of you know, both SCHIP and ARRA have been passed. While certainly not simple, SCHIP is fairly straightforward in that it directly addresses health insurance reforms as it relates to children and pregnant women. ARRA (aka the Stimulus Package), on the other hand, comprises many items in addition to the many healthcare reforms. The reforms that will directly impact our industry and our clients are many-fold. Cobra, the federal law that allows employees to continue their healthcare coverage after termination of employment has been expanded and will be subsidized for 9 months in certain instances. Funding for a host of disease research, among them heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease and cancer research, (now the leading cause of death of Americans), was included in this bill. During the President’s speech, he alluded to this and his hope that cancer will be ‘cured within our time’. Funding for Health IT systems are a big part of the package as well, with healthcare providers being mandated to have electronic records by 2015. This item has certainly generated some controversy, however the codification of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology and the Comparative Effectiveness provision have become the ‘cause celebre’ in the media and has led to a ‘feeding frenzy’ by radio talk shows and print media. Even our own Las Vegas Review Journal, in it’s Sunday, February 22, 2009 editorial, voiced concerns about misuse of the legislation to deny claims. Nothing could be further from the truth. The law is specifically written with consumer protections in mind. The Coordinator position was actually created during the Bush Administration; the new legislation simply clarifies and officially recognizes it. With so much misinformation out there, your clients look to YOU, their agent, to provide the voice of reason amidst this storm. NAHU and CCAHU provide the answers and training you need to properly inform and advise your clients. One of the ways we can do that by attending our monthly luncheons. Always pertinent and informative, at our March 10th luncheon the various provision of the ARRA will be thoroughly discussed. Now is the time to reserve your seat for the luncheon so you can be better informed to answer your clients’ question

Day on the Hill

For those of you that were able to attend “Day on the Hill” in Carson City this past week, congratulations. For those of you who weren’t able to attend, the event can only be described as “electric”. From our first day attending a tour of the Carson City DOI to an after-hours dinner party sponsored by Nevadans for Affordable Health Care, to the final day attending the 75th Legislative Session at which Senator Harry Reid spoke, I think I speak for all that attended that it was very informative and productive. Your CCAHU (and the concerns of our industry) were very well represented, with the legislators and lobbyists very receptive to our input as the country moves closer to comprehensive healthcare reform. It is events like these that help your CCAHU and our industry as a whole maintain a seat at the table of healthcare reform. Next month CCAHU will be in Washington, DC at Cap Conference, advocating reforms that directly affect you and you clients. It is important to support these activities directly by attending these important events, and/or indirectly through your contributions to HUPAC and State HUPAC. Hope to see you at Cap Conference !

Stimulus Package Set to Become Law

On Friday, February 13th, lawmakers signed HR-1, commonly know as the stimulus bill. Next, it will go to President Obama for his signature, Monday February 16th. A number of compromises were struck, most importantly on the House version's expansion of the Medicaid program. Instead of expanding the Medicaid Program, lawmakers agreed on language giving $87 billion in matching funds to the states through December 31rst, 2010.

Next is a provision allowing workers that were/will be involuntarily terminated between 9/1/2008 through 12/21/2009 to receive a 65% subsidy for COBRA for 9 months. After 9 months, the worker could still continue COBRA for the remaining 9 or 27 months but without the subsidy. The total cost for this provision is estimated to be $24.7 billion.

The remainder of the bill gives $19 billion to doctors and hospitals to help them institute electronic medical records, $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness technology, $1 billion for wellness and preventive programs and finally, also included in the legislation is an expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) programs and the Health Coverage Tax Credit.

Obama Reverses Bush CHIP directive

On the heels of President Obama signing expanded SCHIP legislation into law, a memo reversing certain restrictions placed upon SCHIP by the Bush administration in an August 2008 letter was released Thursday, 2/5/09. Specifically the memo sought to eliminate the following restrictions, which was proving to be unenforceable and resulted in certain states filing legal challenges against it.

Children in families with incomes greater than 250% of the federal poverty level first must verify that 95% of eligible children in families below 200% of the poverty level are enrolled in the program. HHS also required states to verify that children in families with incomes above 250% of the poverty level have been uninsured for one year before qualifying for CHIP. The memo sought to clear up any potential confusion over SCHIP implementation and to allow the new SCHIP law to proceed without interference.

The entire memo can be viewed at this link : http://politics.theatlantic.com/02-04-09%20CHIP%20Presidential%20Memorandum.pdf

President Obama Signs SCHIP bill

As of 1:30 pm PST (4:30 EST) today, February 4th, President Obama signed the House's bill HR2 into law. The bill was unchanged from the Senate version passed last week so the Senate's amendments were included. The law contains premium subsidies long advocated by NAHU, which is believed to help mitigate potential "fall-out" (whereby individuals opt out of other coverage to go onto the SCHIP plan) by allowing states to create, expand and improve premium-assistance programs for employer-coverage. Going forward, NAHU expects to develop model legislation to help create new premium assistance programs in states that don't already have programs in place and to improve upon states' plans that are already in place.