As House Republicans paint the fingernails of the AHCA zombie with a little reinsurance gloss, let's take a 20-second irony timeout.
An amendment layered into the zombie AHCA yesterday would create an "invisible risk" program, funded with $15 billion for the years 2018-2026, that would pick up costs above a certain threshold (as yet undefined for enrollees in individual market health plans.
That program would exist "within" the AHCA's Patient and State Stability Fund (PSSF) program, which allocates $115 billion over nine years for states to spend as they will to stabilize their markets. State options, as summarized by Avalere Health, include "providing financial assistance for high cost individuals, incentivizing insurer participation in their markets, reducing the cost of insurance, promoting access to preventive services, and reducing out-of-pocket costs for patients." The $15 billion allocated to the "invisible risk" fund is additional. Thus, $130 billion is allocated to stabilize markets from 2018-2026.
As was immediately obvious when the AHCA text was released, the ACA marketplace's problems would essentially be over if Republicans allocated $100 billion ( later raised to $115 and now to $130 billion) for states to use to stabilize their markets. At least, its problems would be over in states that chose to take their allocation and provide the required match, which does rise over the funding period. And all states would probably do so if the marketplace were no longer a focus of Republican hatred.
An amendment layered into the zombie AHCA yesterday would create an "invisible risk" program, funded with $15 billion for the years 2018-2026, that would pick up costs above a certain threshold (as yet undefined for enrollees in individual market health plans.
That program would exist "within" the AHCA's Patient and State Stability Fund (PSSF) program, which allocates $115 billion over nine years for states to spend as they will to stabilize their markets. State options, as summarized by Avalere Health, include "providing financial assistance for high cost individuals, incentivizing insurer participation in their markets, reducing the cost of insurance, promoting access to preventive services, and reducing out-of-pocket costs for patients." The $15 billion allocated to the "invisible risk" fund is additional. Thus, $130 billion is allocated to stabilize markets from 2018-2026.
As was immediately obvious when the AHCA text was released, the ACA marketplace's problems would essentially be over if Republicans allocated $100 billion ( later raised to $115 and now to $130 billion) for states to use to stabilize their markets. At least, its problems would be over in states that chose to take their allocation and provide the required match, which does rise over the funding period. And all states would probably do so if the marketplace were no longer a focus of Republican hatred.
