Which Democratic healthcare reform bills offer the most affordable coverage to the most people?

Subscribe to xpostfactoid via box on right (requires only an email address; you'll get 2-3 emails per week on average)

Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, has a message for elected officials and candidates. With regard to healthcare policy

it’s the candidates who can connect their plans and messages to voters’ worries about out of pocket costs who will reach beyond the activists in their base. And the candidates aren’t speaking to that much, at least so far.   

That claim is based mainly on Kaiser polling, which finds that 48 percent of voters worry about paying their health care bills, and half of people who are sick have trouble paying their medical bills.

The extent to which various Democratic bills to improve or replace the ACA address the demand for affordability can be viewed in two dimensions. First is the degree to which they make coverage more affordable and reduce out-of-pocket costs for the ACA's original intended beneficiaries: those who lack access to other affordable insurance, mainly employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). Second is the degree to which they impact affordability for the 150-plus million current ESI enrollees (roughly 56% of the population under age 65).

The bills affect the affordability of ESI in three ways.

Medicare at 50 Act: A bonanza for low income near-elderly

A word from our sponsor: subscribe, via box on right (requires email address only; you'll get 2-3 emails per week) P.S. See 2/24 update at bottom.

The Medicare at 50 bill introduced last week by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) is a pretty bare outline that raises a lot of questions.

The bill allows people aged 50-64 to buy into Medicare. Those who qualify for ACA tax credits -- i.e., have incomes below 401% of the Federal Poverty Level and lack access to employer-sponsored insurance, Medicaid or other public insurance -- can apply those credits to the Medicare premium.  No new program is created; no adjustments to the over-65 Medicare benefit to make the program fit the needs of younger enrollees are specified.  To note a few oddities:

1) Enrollees can choose traditional fee-for-service Medicare (Parts A, B, D) or a Medicare Advantage plan. No annual cap on out-of-pocket costs is added to traditional Medicare, so those who choose it will forgo that ACA marketplace benefit, which currently caps costs at about $7,900 per person -- unless they qualify for Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR), per the next point below.  Enrollees in traditional Medicare can buy Medigap policies on a guaranteed issue basis. With no OOP cap, traditional Medicare would not qualify as ACA-compliant coverage -- except that the bill specifies that it shall.