How deep is public support for a broad public option in health insurance?

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In polling about U.S. healthcare, the prospect of a “public option” for health insurance, open to all Americans regardless of whether they have access to employer-sponsored insurance, generally scores high. Here is the top-line response to a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll conducted in January 2020:

Looking beneath the hood of that apparent relative consensus, a research team led by Adrianna McIntyre of Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health conducted a poll in November/December 2020 that probed attitudes toward government that underlie responses to health reforms including a public option — specifically, a Medicare buy-in for people under age 65. The researchers published an analysis* in Milbank Quarterly this month. While top-line results were similar to KFF’s, the researchers note:

An overwhelming majority of Democrats (86%) report believing that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure universal health insurance coverage; only 11% of Republicans hold the same view. Most Democrats (71%) also report that they would prefer a health insurance system run mostly by the government, while a similar share of Republicans (78%) would prefer a system based mostly on private health insurance. Two-thirds of Democrats (67%) believe the federal government should be more involved in health care in the future, but over half of their Republican counterparts (56%) believe it should be less involved. Prior work has also found that while a large majority of Democrats (65%) believe the government would do a better job than private health insurance plans at reducing the nation’s health care costs, significantly fewer Republicans (25%) hold that view.

ACA 2.0 -- how's it going so far?

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On a temporary basis, the health insurance-related provisions of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) signed into law on March 11 moved the Affordable Care Act much closer to living up to its name. Major boosts to premium subsidies effective through 2022 at every income level -- including an absolute cap on premiums for a benchmark plan as a percentage of income for every legally present person who lacks affordable access to other insurance -- credibly put coverage within financial reach of everyone motivated to seek it, albeit with more complexity of process and exposure to out-of-pocket costs than a truly universal system would require. That's a BFD, as a former vice president might say.

The changes became effective immediately and retroactively --  three months after the end of Open Enrollment for 2021 and with an emergency Special Enrollment Period still in progress. So, almost six weeks in, how's it going? A few notes below on implementation, benefit design, and future prospects.

• Fixing a plane in mid-flight (as the emergency SEP is effectively an Open Enrollment period), federal and sometimes state governments have moved with impressive swiftness. While subsidy boosts for those already enrolled were retroactive to Jan. 1, and would be credited eventually by the IRS, HealthCare.gov got the new subsidy schedule loaded on April 1, enabling enrollees to update their applications and get the increase subsidies applied to their monthly payments as of May 1. Most of the 15 state-based marketplaces have followed suit, or set a date by which it will be done (see Charles Gaba's chart at point #2 here). On April 9, the IRS issued guidance enabling 2020 enrollees who underestimated their income and so owed back excess tax credits to take advantage of an ARPA provision forgiving that payback, announcing that the form that details tax credits paid out does not have to be filed at all, and that the IRS will credit back excess APTC already paid back without any further action from the tax filer. 

A public option by inches: Bennet and Kaine's Medicare-X

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This week Democratic Senators Michael Bennet (CO) and Tim Kaine (VA) introduced an updated version of their Medicare-X Choice Act, first introduced in 2017 and again in  2019 (summary here, bill here). The bill would introduce a strong public option into the ACA marketplace and small group markets, paying Medicare rates to providers in most markets, though up to 150% Medicare in rural markets. It would also improve subsidies at every income level on a schedule that's become the Democratic legislative default -- e.g., in the Coronavirus relief legislation. Enrollees would pay the following percentages of income for a benchmark silver plan:

Note that benchmark coverage is free at incomes up to 150% FPL (currently about $19k/year for an individual), and there is no income cap on subsidies: no one who lacks access to other insurance (e.g., an employer-sponsored plan) would pay more than 8.5% of income for benchmark silver. The 2019 version capped subsidies at 13% of income -- a measure of how far Democrats have come in adjusting their concept of affordability.

Compared to the healthcare reform plan Joe Biden introduced as a candidate in 2020, the bill has two major limitations. First, it does not offer subsidy eligibility to people who have access to other "affordable" insurance, including an offer of insurance from an employer with a premium below 9.5% of income. (The bill does fix the family glitch, offering subsidy eligibility to employees with families if the employer's family plan costs more than 9.5% of income.) It is not "Medicare for all who want it," notwithstanding presidential candidate Bennet's past claims to the contrary.  

Obama's inside-out view of the public option

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I have been slowly working my way through Obama's memoir with a kind of wariness of being emotionally sucked in. Like all political memoirists, Obama presents himself as having made the best decisions he could given what he knew at the time. True, in the sense that his motives were good, his process was good, and his intellect is good. But still self-serving, and sometimes disingenuous.  

For all Obama's solicitation of a wide range of views, his narrative presents the predominance of certain views and voices as a given.  For example, regarding the size of the stimulus, Obama recounts this mid-December exchange:

Immediately after the election, examining the worsening data, we had raised the number to $500 billion. The team now recommended something even bigger. Christy mentioned a trillion dollars, causing Rahm to sputter like a cartoon character spitting out a bad meal. “There’s no fucking way,” Rahm said. Given the public’s anger over the hundreds of billions of dollars already spent on the bank bailout, he said, any number that began “with a t” would be a nonstarter with lots of Democrats, not to mention Republicans. I turned to Joe, who nodded in assent.

And that's it: political reality foreclosed, while Larry Summers foreclosed on the economic argument for more stimulus-- and Christine Romer's input is reduced to a "mention."  In Obama's telling, the stimulus his administration proposed was audaciously gargantuan by any current standard. 

With Biden's public option, who needs Biden's Medicare buy-in?

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Joe Biden's healthcare reform plan, released last July, is a light sketch of a familiar reform model: "Medicare" for all who want it, centered on a public option that anyone can buy into on a subsidized basis.

Biden proposes a public option offered within the ACA marketplace, paying Medicare rates or something close them to providers (though the language is vague here) and available on a subsidized basis to people whose employers offer health coverage as well as those who lack access to employer-sponsored insurance (though the language on this front is also ambiguous*). The public option, and private plans within the ACA marketplace at the same benchmark metal level, would cover between 80% and 100% of the average enrollee's costs, diminishing with income, at premiums ranging from zero to 8.5% of income.**

A bill introduced in the House by Reps Jan Schakowsky and Rosa DeLauro, the Medicare for America bill, has this basic structure but integrates the new public option into a more comprehensive healthcare system overhaul, revamping and folding in both existing Medicare and Medicaid, and offering buy-ins to employers of all sizes.  Biden's bill leaves Medicaid and existing Medicare intact and does not offer buy-ins to employers, only employees.

That leaves an opening of sorts for Biden's latest initiative: opening existing Medicare to adults aged 60 and over. Such a step is imaginable as a stopgap that could be effected more quickly than Biden's more sweeping overhaul. But Biden is proposing that the opt-in to existing Medicare co-exist as an option beside "the Biden Medicare-like public option — as well as other subsidized private plans available to individuals through the Affordable Care Act."

Our emerging public option: Medicaid

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Axios's Bob Herman notes that "Medicaid will be a lifeline for droves of Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic."

The program will pick up many people who lost their income and their health insurance together, as well as people who lost jobs that didn't provide health insurance, and potentially some people who are still working and need medical care but aren't insured.

Indeed it will. As of early this year, about 72 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid's various programs. Based on an old rule of thumb from Georgetown's Edwin Park that I've cited before, enrollment (including CHIP)  could reach 85 million or more by the time the pandemic subsides:

The one executable healthcare reform plan put forward by a presidential candidate

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If I may cannibalize my Twitter thread, a reaction to last night's debate in four tweets:

Healthcare in last night's debate: More blah blah blah about public option vs. M4A and nary a word about Republican intentions to void the ACA, gut Medicaid, bring back medical underwriting, uninsure tens of millions and cut at least $1 trillion in HC spending in first decade.

You have to have goals, yes. But they remind me of old-time communists arguing about who'll clean the toilets when the state withers away.

"Everyone must have access to Medicare-plus, but you can keep your wonderful employer plan if you prefer!" "No, everyone must have free access to everything!" Meanwhile...

It'll be a minor miracle if we're not living in authoritarian austerity state and if a Dem president can wring Medicare drug negotiation, balance billing ban and improvements to ACA subsidies/access through a 51-49 senate.

Michael Bloomberg's healthcare plan eats its own tail

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Michael Bloomberg's just-released health coverage plan would do some good if enacted. It's introduced, however, with a false premise.

Deeming "a Medicare-like public option" the "first step," the plan outline pronounces:

A public insurance option would improve consumer choice and increase competition in the private insurance market, pushing down everyone’s premiums. People of modest means who buy the public option would be eligible for the same subsidies that would apply on the health insurance exchanges.

As students of the ACA marketplace know, however, within the marketplace structure, when base (pre-subsidy) premiums shrink, the premiums paid by subsidized enrollees tend to go up. That's because the subsidies are designed so that the enrollee pays a fixed percentage of income (rising with income) for the benchmark (second cheapest silver) plan. If you buy a plan that's cheaper than the benchmark, your subsidy goes further (and these days, thanks to silver loading*, may cover the whole premium). When premiums go down, price spreads between the benchmark and cheaper plans tend to shrink, reducing discounts for the cheapest silver plan and for bronze plans. If a public option reduces premiums, as Bloomberg promises, it will increase them more often than otherwise for subsidized buyers. Ditto for reinsurance, proposed to reduce premiums another 10%.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is shaping (or showing the shape of) our healthcare debate

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There is a subtext to Abby Goodnough's excellent overview of voters' preference for a public option or Medicare buy-in over Medicare for All:  the extent to which the Kaiser Family Foundation and its tracking poll of voters' healthcare concerns and perceptions are shaping the debate.

Voters cited in Goodnough's piece reflect the concerns about M4A flagged in Kaiser polls:

About two-thirds of voters like the idea of a public option or Medicare buy-in, according to several recent national polls. This month, the Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, which has asked voters about the plan four times since July, found that 65 percent of the public favors the idea, compared with 53 percent who support “Medicare for all.” Large majorities of Democrats and independents favored a public option in Kaiser’s November poll, as did 41 percent of Republicans — roughly the same level as earlier Kaiser polls found but down from an unusual spike of 58 percent in October....

The logic underpinning Medicare for all who want it

Blog as sketchpad: as employer-sponsored insurance continues to slowly, steadily bleed Americans white, I think the case for a strong public option that anyone can buy into on an affordable, income-adjusted basis boils down to a few simple propositions:

1. Employer insurance is deteriorating because employers (through insurance intermediaries) lack pricing power. Every year, premium and OOP increases exceed inflation and wage growth.

2. The competition needed to endow them with that power is a strong public option paying providers Medicare rates or some variant.

3. Once such a public option establishes all-payer rates, either de facto or by fiat**, we will have space to determine whether private insurance adds any value

4. Under those revamped market conditions, we can afford to be agnostic as to whether private insurance survives or dies.

---

FN - This little credo started life as a postscript to a slightly longer version of the argument.

* The Medicare for America bill, which establishes a strong public option paying modified Medicare rates (110% Medicare, with adjustments for primary care, mental health and underserved areas), stipulates that providers who accept the public plan must accept the same payment rates from commercial insurers. Competition from a strong public option could more slowly have the same effect.

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Employer-sponsored insurance as we know it is unsustainable. Now what?

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Kaiser's 2019 Employer Health Benefits Survey, released yesterday, highlights a basic I noted a month ago (based on a Kaiser precursor report): employer-sponsored health insurance is deteriorating. Average family plan premiums have topped $20,000; average deductibles have topped $1,600. Family premiums have increased 54% over ten years. That's actually down from the previous ten years, when rates more than doubled. But the climb in excess of inflation has been relentless.

The system most consistently fails low income workers -- many of whom would be better off if the employer offered no insurance, rendering them eligible for ACA marketplace subsidies. KFF president Drew Altman lays out the basics:

• Roughly 36 million American workers earn $25,000 per year or less — retail workers, personal care attendants, warehouse workers and many more.
• Just 33% of workers at lower-wage firms offering health benefits are covered by their employer’s health benefits, well below the 63% share at other firms offering coverage.
• These low-wage workers pay an average of $7,000 per year just toward the premium for a family plan.
• Workers in low-wage firms also face much higher deductibles: a $2,679 annual single deductible, while at other firms, the average is $1,610.

My takeaways:

Healthcare reformers can't leave employer-sponsored insurance untouched

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Presidential candidates and other Democrats who want to patch or build on the ACA rather than create a substantially new system generally neglect, to varying degrees, an attendant problem: employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) is also in dire need of reform.

A Kaiser Family Foundation's report on large employer coverage released this month found that health spending by families in large employer plans has grown twice as fast as wages over the past decade. The employer share of costs in family coverage (premium plus out-of-pocket) has downticked only slightly:  it was 68% in 2008 and 66% in 2018.  But families and employers alike are tapped out: total costs increased 67% over those ten years. The total cost of large group coverage for a family of four now averages $22,000 per year. Reducing healthcare costs is among voters' top priorities.

Beyond the steady-but-high yearly increases recorded by Kaiser, yesterday NYT reporters Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas spotlighted a recent development that could be destabilizing: the proliferation of specialty drugs for rare diseases, which can carry price tags in the millions per patient per year. As Abelson and Thomas note, about 10% of the population is afflicted with rare diseases,  and more than half the drugs approved in 2018 targeted such diseases.

Triage: A moderate healthcare reform proposal

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Prescript (8/7/19): it occurs to me that this rather kludgy patch to our current system boils down to a simple rule: no one pays more than 8% of income for less than 80% AV insurance.  Paid for in part by expanding the footprint of Medicare payment rates.

*          *          *

I want to float here a path to healthcare system reform that starts a gear shift or two below the Medicare for America bill, which creates a strong public option that anyone can buy into at an income-adjusted price. I am mindful of David Anderson's warning that a Democratic president who goes for sweeping healthcare reform (assuming at best a narrow Senate majority and abolishment of the filibuster) will have bandwidth for little else -- and I think other imperatives, like attacking global warming, should come first.

First, a set of working assumptions (and background on current bills) that undergird where I land (skip to the subhead, where the proposal starts, if you're so inclined).

1. The U.S. healthcare system is outrageously expensive, unjust, and inefficient, distorted by two related structural flaws:

Biden Plan: An ACA 2.0/Medicare for America hybrid

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Joe Biden released a healthcare reform plan outline today. It looks like a cross between the Medicare for America bill, which would create a strong national public option, and various "ACA 2.0" bills, which would bolster ACA premium subsidies and reduce enrollees' out-of-pocket costs.

In brief, here are the core features of these antecedents:

• ACA 2.0 bills and plans, including Elizabeth Warren's, are generally variants on an ACA enhancement plan published in August 2015 by Urban Institute scholars Linda Blumberg and John Holahan.  The core is simply to increase ACA premium subsidies and extend them to more people. Blumberg and Holahan proposed raising the ACA benchmark, against which subsidies are calculated, from "silver" to "gold" - -that is, from an actuarial value of 70% (paying that percentage of the average user's annual medical costs) to 80%. They further proposed raising AV higher than that income levels up to 300% FPL, improving the ACA's Cost Sharing Reduction subsidies at lower income levels; reducing the percentage of income paid for the benchmark at every income level; and capping premiums as a percentage of income at 8.5% for anyone at any income level who lacks access to employer insurance or other insurance -- removing the ACA's 400% FPL income cap on subsidies. At bottom, I've posted Blumberg and Holahan's proposed premium and AV schedule.


• The Medicare for America Act of 2019 would create a revamped Medicare available to people at all income levels, paying Medicare rates (adjusted modestly) to providers, and costing no one more than 8% of income. All Americans would be eligible for income-based premium subsidies, even if their employers offer affordable coverage. The plan would be free -- with no cost-sharing -- to people with incomes below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). Newborns would be auto-enrolled. Employers could "buy in" by paying a payroll tax, or continue to offer coverage. Existing Medicare and Medicaid would be integrated into the new program, which would include long-term care insurance. Medicare would negotiate drug prices, and a price review board would be empowered to crack down on price gouging.

Ambiguity on key points

Biden's plan would establish "a public health insurance option like Medicare" that, "like Medicare...will reduce costs for patients by negotiating lower prices from hospitals and other health care providers."  Note that it's not entirely clear whether this option will simply adopt Medicare prices or negotiate separately -- in fact, the language implies the latter. The plan will be available to anyone, including those with access to employer insurance -- but here too the language is ambiguous; it's not clear whether those with access to employer insurance would be eligible for subsidies.

Michael Bennet misrepresented his Medicare-X bill on CNN

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, who entered the presidential race on May 2, made headlines yesterday for taking on Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All plan in a CNN Town Hall yesterday. Bennet claimed that it's impracticable to take employer-sponsored insurance away from "180 million people" currently insured through their employers ( a high estimate), especially from millions whose unions have negotiated good benefits.

It's a familiar line of attack. More noteworthy was the fact that Bennet misrepresented his own ACA reform bill, the Medicare-X Choice Act, which introduces a national public option into the ACA exchanges. Here's what Bennet said (my transcript and emphasis):

What we would be much better off doing to get to universal healthcare quickly is to finish the job we started with the Affordable Care Act and have a true public option...The one that I have designed would be administered by Medicare and it would give all of you the chance to choose what's right for you and your family. If you want a public option then you can have it. Basically it's Medicare for all if you want it. But if you to keep the insurance you have, which many people do, you'd be able to do that as well.

This is not literally untrue. As of the fifth year after enactment, anyone could buy into Medicare-X, which would be offered in all counties nationwide alongside private plans in the ACA marketplace. But only a limited number of people could buy in on a subsidized basis. Most people whose employers offer insurance would not be subsidy-eligible.

A major fix in Medicare for America 2.0

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Medicare for America, the sweeping healthcare reform bill that allows anyone to buy into a revamped Medicare at an income-adjusted premium, has the potential to transform U.S. healthcare into either an all-payer or a single-payer system.

The bill, first introduced by Reps Rosa DeLauro and Jean Schakowsky in December 2018 and reintroduced on May 1 this year, allows both Medicare Advantage and employer-sponsored insurance to continue, and stipulates that healthcare providers must accept (revised) Medicare payment rates from those private programs.  But because employees can opt into "Medicare" on an income-adjusted basis even if their employers offer compliant private insurance, private insurance will have to establish a real competitive advantage if it's to survive alongside the generous public program.

The headline change in the reintroduced bill is elimination of deductibles, which were modest enough in the original bill (topping out at $350 individual/$500 family). But a more significant change improves the bill's financing and provides ballast for the competition between public and private sectors.

Let's call it 160% Medicare...Washington state public option

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[Updates at bottom: bill is on the Governor's desk]

A few days back, I noted that the state public option bill working its way through the Washington legislature provides an object lesson in how hard it is to expand the pool of people in health plans paying Medicare rates.  An early iteration of the bill had the public plan paying Medicare rates, but a version that passed the House on April 10 had upped the maximum aggregate payment rate to 150% Medicare. The Senate declined to pass this bill, and it went to conference.

Now a new version (ESSB 5526) has emerged from Senate-House conference (kindly flagged for me by Amy Lotven of Inside Health Policy, who will have a story up about it later today). And guess what -- the maximum aggregate payment rate* is up to 160% Medicare.  For reference, commercial payment rates to hospitals average 188% Medicare nationally, according to a 2017 CBO report, and about 128% Medicare for physicians, according to MEDPAC.

Further, the director of the state Health Care Authority can waive the rate cap if she "determines that selective contracting will result in actuarially sound premium rates that are no greater than the qualified health plan's previous plan year rates adjusted for inflation." The director can also waive the rate cap if a carrier contracted to provide the public option can't form a provider network that meets the stipulated network adequacy standards, or if the carrier can offer premiums 10% lower than those of the previous plan year without conforming to the rate cap.

100% Medicare, 150%, 160%.... I am reminded* of the accounting approach of Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh's friend:

Medicare-X 2.0 deserves a second look

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As originally introduced by Senators Bennet and Kaine in October 2017, the Medicare-X Choice Act (summary here) placed a big fish --  a strong public option -- in a small pond, the ACA marketplace.

The "Medicare-X" public option would first be introduced into low-competition areas in the ACA marketplace, and then into all rating areas. The public plan would pay Medicare rates to providers, and providers who accept Medicare would be required to accept it. But in the first iteration, eligibility for subsidies adhered to ACA criteria, and the subsidies themselves were not improved. While it might improve affordability for the unsubsidized, its appeal to subsidized enrollees might be more limited, though the full Medicare provider network might be a powerful draw. As to premium, however,  I noted recently

By conforming to current ACA subsidy structure, Medicare-X runs afoul of the ACA paradox: measures that reduce unsubsidized premiums do not improve affordability for the two thirds of current individual market enrollees who receive subsidies. In fact, premium reductions often reduce discounts by compressing price spread between benchmark plans, against which subsidies are set, and cheaper plans, to which the subsidy can be applied.

The bill did phase in a small business buy-in, and that might be attractive, as the unsubsidized price might be a relative bargain for small businesses, and the provider network would be unbeatable. It might thus expand the small group market,  which enrolled an estimated 13.6 million people in 2016.

The update introduced this month (bill here, summary here) widens the pool of potential beneficiaries, combining measures that expand subsidy eligibility and reduce unsubsidized premiums -- potentially offsetting the cost of subsidizing more enrollees. It's a limited and cost-conscious expansion of benefits that might make the ACA work more as designed.

Expanding the footprint of Medicare payment rates is hard: Washington State edition

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It's ironic that the path for healthcare reform preferred by allied U.S. healthcare industries is embodied in a bill introduced by Elizabeth Warren.

The Partnership For America's Health Care Future, a coalition of major hospital, health insurance, physician and pharma trade groups formed to preemptively nuke any expansion of pubic insurance, would like government to spend more to insure more people and lower their out-of-pocket costs. But they want government to do this while paying commercial rates to providers. Robert Pear summarizes:

The coalition, like President Trump, attacks any proposals that smack of socialized medicine. But it also has a positive agenda. It wants to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in Texas, Florida and other states that have yet to do so. It wants to expand federal subsidies under the health law so insurance will be affordable to more people. And it wants to stabilize premiums by persuading states to set up reinsurance programs, using a combination of federal and state funds to help pay the largest claims.

While preserving the core ACA structure, Warren's bill removes the ACA's income cap on eligibility for premium subsidies and gives a major boost to ACA premium and cost sharing subsidies at all income levels. While it would tighten insurers' margins a bit, and impose stricter standards on their provider networks, it would boost enrollment and the federal government's share of premiums paid. Insurers should be happy with it,  notwithstanding the rhetorical broadside against insurers with which Warren introduced the bill. It should also be attractive to providers, since it does not impose caps on provider payment rates. .

Should Democrats gain control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, boosting ACA marketplace subsidies -- and, to a certain extent -- eligibility -- should be relatively easy. What won't be easy: expanding the footprint of public insurance that pays Medicare rates (or less) to providers (an exception is Medicaid expansion, for which the target population generally lacks access to commercial insurance).

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

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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.