Sounding The Alarm

Posted on May 26, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

The focus of this blog, Health Insurance Issues With Dave, is, first and foremost, insurance, the way most Americans access and pay for health care.  There are three key players in this process: the medical providers, the insurance companies, and the government.  The medical provider section includes doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and everyone/everything else involved in the delivery of care.  The insurance companies serve both to organize the market and as a useful buffer between the providers and the patients.  And the government writes the rules, pays a huge portion of the bills through Medicare and Medicaid, and significantly impacts the pricing.  There is a natural push and pull in this process.  The American public benefits when all three sectors work towards a common good (Enlightened Self-Interest).  That isn’t easy and it depends on a determined focus and an honest effort.  To be clear, determined focus and honest efforts don’t guarantee success.  A lack of either determined focus or honest effort guarantee failure.

Deep In The Heart(less) Of Texas was posted on September 9, 2018.  This was the first blog dedicated to the Texas lawsuit, the attempt to have the courts declare the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) unconstitutional.  Today’s post will be the 14th warning of the havoc this could cause.  Yes, I keep sounding the alarm.  There isn’t any good will, focus, or honest effort involved in the promotion of this lawsuit.  And it only got worse when Donald Trump decided to champion its cause.

The sudden elimination of Obamacare without a replacement would terminate health insurance for millions of Americans.  This is so important that I was happy to see an article in Sunday’s (5/24/2020) Plain Dealer on the issue.  “If Obamacare was overturned, what would it mean here?” was written by Sabrina Eaton.  Welcome to the conversation!

Please read her article.  There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that contradicts my 13 previous posts.  I will note that Ms. Eaton bothered to contact Senator Portman’s office for the story.  He predictably declined to comment on the court case, but his spokesman did note that premiums have gone up.  I would never contact Senator Portman’s office about a solution or improvement to our health care system for the same reason you wouldn’t bother to call my Rabbi for a ham recipe.  But she tried.

As previously noted, I was both surprised and pleased to see this coverage in the Plain Dealer.  Considering the potential impact on our area, I expected them to sound the alarm regularly.  Imagine my shock when I went to their website to link this article.  It took some effort to find it.  Ms. Eaton’s article was posted on Cleveland.com on May 8, 2020, over two weeks earlier!  I guess Greater Clevelanders are lucky that there was so little going on this Memorial Day weekend that her article finally made it to print.  And though I have readers across the country, I would never compare the reach of my little blog to the readership of the once formidable Plain Dealer or its disorganized website.  An issue that impacts nearly 20% of our nation’s economy, the lives of millions of Ohioans, and the financial stability of our hospitals deserves our attention.  In the old days we could count on our newspapers to bring us the information we needed.

Will the Texas lawsuit succeed?  Stranger things have happened.  I promise to keep you informed.  And to keep sounding the alarm.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – Thankfully Loud – David L Cunix

 

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The Fear Before Now

Posted on May 11, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

Health insurance used to be hard to get and expensive.  It is no longer hard to get health insurance, but it certainly is expensive.  In that health insurance is the way most Americans access and pay for their health care, it was very important to make it easier for us to become insured.

Too many of us forget what it once was like to purchase insurance.  In ancient times, pre-2014, your agent would ask you questions about your health, occupation, driving record, and hobbies.  If you needed coverage for a spouse or children, we needed all of that information on each of them, too.  As you can imagine, there were plenty of adults with Diabetes (Type 1 or 2), cancers, and sports injuries that either prevented them from acquiring coverage or resulted in higher premiums.  Some policies waived (excluded) preexisting conditions.  Some policies accepted an individual and his/her preexisting conditions after extensive conversations with the underwriters and the insurer had collected all of the pertinent medical records.

Insurance companies hate preexisting conditions, the difference between a risk and a certainty.  Children were an agent’s biggest challenge.  Ask any agent.  We remember the children we fought to cover.  There were children, sometimes babies, with cystic fibrosis, heart conditions, and even adolescents with ADHD.  We fought and we fought and most of the time we succeeded at finding the families health insurance.

No one wants to be responsible for the payment of the costs associated with preexisting conditions.  Not even the government.  Today’s proof comes courtesy of The Military Times.  The Pentagon has confirmed a recently released memo that stated that any recruit who has been diagnosed as having had COVID-19 will be permanently disqualified.  Permanently.  We have no idea what costs may be incurred 5, 10, or even 20 years from now by those who survive the Coronavirus.

We used to worry about getting insurance once we contracting an illness or suffered an injury even if we had a complete recovery.  That fear was real.  Now, thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), we no longer have that concern.  That could change if Donald Trump and 18 Republican governors have their way.

This blog has extensively covered the Texas lawsuit, the effort to declare Obamacare unconstitutional which would eliminate coverage for preexisting conditions and throw our entire system into disarray.  This past Wednesday was an important milepost, the last day for the Trump administration to disengage from the case as it heads to the Supreme Court.  Instead, President Trump said, “We want to terminate health care under Obamacare”.  What would happen if he is successful and Obamacare destroyed?  He has no idea.  What is his alternative, his replacement for our current system?  Trust him, it will be great.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) was interviewed by Chuck Todd on Meet The Press (5/20/2020).  The Senator expressed disappointment that Trump decided to stay a part of the lawsuit.  It was one thing for Senator Alexander and other Congressional Republicans to cast dozens of meaningless votes to dismantle Obamacare.  It is entirely different to actually be a part of an action that could succeed in harming millions of Americans.

It is amazing that Texas, with almost 25% uninsured, the highest in the country, wants to impose its success on the rest of us.

States suing to immediately end the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

Texas                                 Alabama

Arkansas                            Arizona

Florida                               Georgia

Indiana                              Kansas

Louisiana                           Mississippi

Missouri                            Nebraska

North Dakota                    South Carolina

South Dakota                     Tennessee

Utah                                  West Virginia

These states were part of the lawsuit, but dropped off:

Maine                                Wisconsin

States defending the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (initial filing):

California                          Connecticut

District of Columbia          Delaware

Hawaii                               Illinois

Kentucky                            Massachusetts

Minnesota                         New Jersey

New York                           North Carolina

Oregon                              Rhode Island

Vermont                            Virginia

Washington

These states joined in the defense:

Colorado                           Iowa

Michigan                           Nevada

Data courtesy Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

There was fear before now, the fear that we would not be able to get health insurance for ourselves and our families due to a preexisting condition.  It was real.  The question, now in the middle of a pandemic, is whether that fear is about to return.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – The Other Side Of The Fence – David L Cunix

 

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How Do You Spell HSA?

Posted on April 26, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

Spelling was my Achilles Heel.  I couldn’t spell.  I even got a D in spelling on a report card!  And whether I was at home or school, when I asked an adult how to spell a word I would inevitably get the same answer, “Look it up”.  Looking up a word in a dictionary, decades before AI, meant that you took your best guess, failed, and kept on trying until you bumped into the correct spelling.  It was not efficient.  There was one benefit to this exercise.  Opening up a dictionary was like handing me a car with a full-tank of gasoline and access to the freeways.  There were no dead-ends or wrong turns.  And reading a dictionary was far more interesting than whatever project I had been assigned.

Our computers and phones now have spellcheck.  The big dictionary has been replaced by Google, Alexa, and Siri.  The information you need is at your fingertips or by simply asking your electronic assistant.  So I was very surprised when one of my life insurance clients recently asked me some questions about Health Savings Accounts (HSA).  I told him that the information was readily available and that I had covered this on my searchable blog.  He had little interest in reading the blog(!) and felt that I should put the information into a useable format for him and some of his friends and coworkers at a local large business.  I wrote him a letter.  Not only did I answer his questions he even insisted that I create a special page for this on my website.  Instead, I will just post the letter as part of today’s blog.

April 21, 2020 

Dear Roger (Name changed so that my attorney can sleep at night): 

It is important to remind you, up front, that I am an insurance agent not a CPA.  You should consult with your professional tax preparer about whether or not anything is deductible for you.  The information I am providing is based on my understanding of how these insurance policies impact my clients’ taxes. 

The term H.S.A. is normally used to refer to two very separate things.  Part One is a High Deductible Health Insurance Policy.  Part Two is a Health Savings Account.  You can have Part One without Part Two.  You cannot have Part Two without Part One!  This is very important and has been an area of confusion. 

A High Deductible Health Insurance Policy (HDHP):

  • For 2020, the IRS defines a high deductible health plan as any plan with a deductible of at least $1,400 for an individual or $2,800 for a family. An HDHP’s total yearly out-of-pocket expenses (including deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance) can’t be more than $6,900 for an individual or $13,800 for a family. (This limit doesn’t apply to out-of-network services.)
  • All covered services must apply to the deductible prior to any copays or coinsurance.
  • The exception has been Preventive Care performed by a network provider.
  • A recently added exception is the diagnosis and treatment for COVID 19 which will be covered without deductible, copayment, or coinsurance.
  • It has been generally ruled that even telemedicine, other than for COVID 19, cannot be provided free or with copayments until the deductible has been met. 

Once you have an HDHP, whether it is an individual policy or an employer sponsored group contract, you may open a Health Savings Account.

  • An HSA may be opened through an insurer, a bank affiliated with an insurer, a bank, or an online HSA bank
  • The employer may contribute $0 to the annual maximum
  • An individual or employee may contribute between $0 to the maximum
  • The annual maximum is the same regardless of who is contributing
  • The maximum contribution for 2020 is $3,550 for an individual and $7,100 for a family.
  • The catch-up contribution limit for those over age 55 will remain at $1,000.

 Medicare:

A friend of mine, an attorney, had a couple of quick questions about Medicare.  He will be turning 65 soon and needed to confirm that he didn’t have to sign up for Medicare Part B since he plans to stay on his wife’s group health policy.  I verified that his wife works for a company with over 20 employees.  So yes, he doesn’t need Medicare Part B.  But, I asked, is the group plan a High Deductible Health Savings Account (HSA) Qualified Policy and do you contribute to the HSA?  He confirmed that Yes and Yes.  In that case, he must renounce Medicare Part A, too.  You cannot contribute to a Health Savings Account if you have Medicare.  In fact, there is a six month look-back.  He didn’t know.  And if an attorney could have accidentally screwed this up, what are the chances that your average office worker or machinist couldn’t make the same mistake? 

The Medicare issue is particularly troubling.  The HR departments do not discuss this with employees.  I have talked with Senator Brown’s office about this. They have looked into correcting this, but there are not enough people pushing on this to see action anytime soon. 

I hope that this answers your questions about High Deductible Health Insurance Policies and Health Savings Accounts.

 

The good news is that now, if you search this blog or ask Google, you might come up with this information.  The bad news is that you won’t spend an hour or two getting lost on other tangents learning all kinds of interesting stuff you wouldn’t otherwise know.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – Old School – David L Cunix

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A Tool, Not A Weapon

Posted on April 20, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was designed to be a tool, a way to improve healthcare in our country and the health insurance that provides the access and payment for that care.  It certainly wasn’t a great tool.  This blog has detailed many of the PPACA’s flaws and shortcomings, but the goals were always about more care for more people.  Through the last ten years many Americans paid less per month for comprehensive coverage and, unfortunately, many Americans have paid more.  There certainly were ways to improve the law.  Few were ever tried.

As previous national health insurance programs that were designed to cover preexisting conditions such as Medicare Part A, Part B, and even Part D (Rx), the PPACA requires individuals to enroll in a timely manner.  Left to their own devices, many people would delay purchasing insurance until they had an immediate need.

Obamacare has an Open Enrollment Period that currently runs from November 1st to December 15th each year.  It used to be a lot longer until the current administration shrunk it to only six weeks in 2017.  There are also Special Enrollment Periods available to Americans who have involuntarily lost their coverage.  The combination of Open Enrollment and Special Enrollments usually meets most people’s needs.

These are not usual times.  States that run their own insurance exchanges have recognized the need to hold an emergency Open Enrollment Period to meet the insurance requirements of their citizens.  Other states, like Ohio, utilize the federal government’s healthcare.gov.  The federal government, read President Trump, is in a position to be a help or a hindrance.  Will Ohioans have an emergency Open Enrollment?  NO!  Donald Trump is happy to convert a tool into a weapon.

Here are some of the people who might benefit from an emergency Open Enrollment:

  • People who never bothered to purchase insurance
  • People who missed the shorter open enrollment period
  • Ohioans who purchased short term major medical and now want comprehensive coverage
  • Ohioans that purchased comprehensive coverage directly from the insurer.  Example – I have a client in her late 20’s.  She is a mechanical engineer making $55K per year.  Since she wouldn’t qualify for a tax credit subsidy, we didn’t have to go through the Exchange to get her policy.  That saves her time and money.  She lost her job.  Too bad.  This doesn’t qualify as a SEP.  If we got the Exchange opened, I could get her a subsidy to help her.
  • Individual policies are HMO contracts that can provide good LOCAL coverage.  If you live in Cleveland and send your child to school in Columbus or Denver or wherever, you will take the child off the Cleveland policy and buy a health plan for the school.  The schools are closed.  The kids are home.  We cannot put the child on the parent’s policy or offer the child a comprehensive policy to purchase.

There is only one reason to not have an emergency Open Enrollment.  By allowing citizens from across the country, many residents of battleground states, to purchase coverage, Trump would be admitting the value of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the law he is actively trying to invalidate.  His support of the Texas lawsuit which would rule the PPACA unconstitutional and eliminate coverage for, among other things, preexisting conditions has gone virtually unnoticed by the general public.  Much like the Coronavirus, many Americans will ignore the implications of the Texas lawsuit until in impacts them directly.  And again like the virus, when they lose their health insurance coverage it will not be dissimilar to being isolated on a ventilator at the end of a darkened hall.

Without a whole lot of thought or planning, Mr. Trump recently announced that the uninsured would have their COVID 19 related bills covered.  When pressed he declared that the hospitals would have to accept the Medicare funding level, as if that was sufficient.   Worse, the president decided to take the money from the desperately needed funds just allocated to our nation’s hospital systems.  We are back to spending the same dollar a couple of times and hoping nobody notices…

We have tools.  In the hands of the right people, the federal government, in concert with the states and major cities, can marshal the professionals needed to treat our sick, work to reduce our risks, and insure our general safety.  All we need are people who understand how to make our system work for us.  And, we need someone who doesn’t want to convert a tool into a weapon.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – Taking A Hammer To The Level

 

 

 

 

 

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PSA

Posted on March 31, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

Time for a quick Public Service Announcement from Health Insurance Issues With Dave:

By now almost all of us accept that the Coronavirus threat is real.  The two ways we can protect ourselves and others is to wash our hands properly for a full 20 seconds and to stay home as much as possible.  It turns out that lots of people are asymptomatic and capable of infecting others for days before they start coughing and/or running a fever.  It is important that even though you need to maximize social (physical) distancing, you shouldn’t let this force you to minimize social interaction.  My friend John in New Orleans, a veteran of Hurricane Katrina, has expressed to me his concerns about the mental health implications of both the virus and the necessary lockdown.  Stay connected.  Your friends, your family, and even your co-workers miss you.

The insurance companies have a variety of resources for all Americans, not just their clients.  Aetna has an excellent information post about coping with the obvious and reasonable fears that we are all experiencing with the Coronavirus pandemic.  This link is worth a couple of moments of your time.

Oscar has created a personal risk assessment survey that is available to both their clients and the general public.  This survey is no replacement for a test, but you will find it useful.  This is a reminder that the more information you have the better chance you have to protect yourself.

The federal government reports, per Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, that if we do everything correctly between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans will succumb to COVID 19.   Mr. Trump considers 100,000 dead Americans a victory.  Let’s be clear, there is nothing special about being 1 out of 100,000.  Stay Safe.  Stay Healthy.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – A Quiet Place in Tennessee – David L Cunix

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The Connections

Posted on March 6, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

The Lakota universe can be described as Mitakuye Oyasin.

         That means that everything is connected,

         Interrelated, and dependent in order to exist.

                     The universe includes all things that grow,

                     things that fly-everything you see in the world

                     or the place that you walk on.

         These are all included in what

         The Lakota see as the universe.

         All of this is related.

                     Robert Two Crow, Community Curator, 1999

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

         Newton’s Third Law

Your car has a group of idiot lights that alert you when the vehicle needs service.  If the tires need air, a light comes on.  When the car needs gas, a different light comes on.  Time for an oil change?  There is a light for that, too.  Until now there hasn’t been an idiot light to warn the American public that our health care system is under attack.  Until now.  On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Texas v. U.S., the lawsuit that could dismantle the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  The red light is on.

The 974 pages of the PPACA touch every aspect of how Americans access and pay for health care.  It is far from perfect.  It did not even do everything it set out to accomplish.  But millions of Americans have benefited from:

  • Coverage for preexisting conditions
  • Policies that are guaranteed issue
  • Maternity treated the same as any other condition
  • Children covered till age 26 on a parent’s policy
  • Medicaid expanded to cover the working poor
  • No maximum benefit

Successive Republican Congresses and the current administration have promised something better.  There have been over 60 votes to repeal the law.  The Supreme Court has upheld the law twice.  Donald Trump promised that he would cover everybody with a plan that would cost less and provide better coverage.  After he was elected he said, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated”.  No sir.  Everybody knew but you.

Eliminate the law and you eliminate our protections.  Amend the law, improve the law and we retain the benefits Americans need and have come to expect.

This is all connected.  The Individual Mandate was designed to enlarge the pool of insureds.  We can’t build a health care system based on the sick and responsible.  The 23 year old woman might get pregnant.  The 63 year old man might develop prostate cancer.  And any of us could fall victim to the Coronavirus or countless other risks.  An efficient health care system must collect enough money to be prepared for the illnesses and accidents that inevitably strike all humans.

Few of us could ever pay all of the costs associated with our health care.  So whether or not we wish to admit it, we are connected.  The Texas lawsuit doesn’t end the connection, just our current method of addressing the costs.

There aren’t any viable alternatives on the table.  Russell Voight, Trump’s Acting Office of Management and Budget Director, was asked last month during his Congressional testimony about the president’s health care plan.  “The president is working on his own plan that we’re not yet ready to reveal.”  This plan is as non-existent as his pre-election plan.  Your preexisting conditions are real.  His plans are not.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this summer, but it is unlikely that a ruling will be issued prior to Election Day.  The red is flashing.  The invalidation of Obamacare, ruling that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, would cause immediate irreparable chaos.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – The Lakota Universe – David L Cunix.  This is part of the exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC.

 

 

 

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Clean Hands

Posted on March 2, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

 

A friend of mine, an attorney, had a couple of quick questions about Medicare.  He will be turning 65 soon and needed to confirm that he didn’t have to sign up for Medicare Part B since he plans to stay on his wife’s group health policy.  I verified that his wife works for a company with over 20 employees.  So yes, he doesn’t need Medicare Part B.  But, I asked, is the group plan a High Deductible Health Savings Account (HSA) Qualified Policy and do you contribute to the HSA?  He confirmed that Yes and Yes.  In that’s case, he must renounce Medicare Part A, too.  You can not contribute to a Health Savings Account if you have Medicare.  In fact, there is a six month look-back.  He didn’t know.  And if an attorney could have accidentally screwed this up, what are the chances that your average office worker or machinist couldn’t make the same mistake?

Capitol Conference, the annual opportunity for members of the National Association of Health Underwriters to hear from members of the administration and meet with our elected officials, was the last week of February.  Fourteen of us from Northeast Ohio were part of the audience of over 700 that heard from Seema Verma the Administrator of the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  House members Lauren Underwood (D-IL), Joe Courtney (D-CT), Greg Walden (R-OR), Kurt Schrader (D-OR), Adrian Smith (R-NE) as well as Senator Todd Young (R-IN) shared their views on pending legislation.  The speeches were interesting, the graphs (!) colorful, but the most important part of our annual trip to Washington are our scheduled appointments with our Congressman and Senators.

For many of us, our favorite appointment each year is with Abby Duggan, Senator Sherrod Brown’s legislative aide.  We appreciate that she is well prepared and that Senator Brown has shown a real interest in some of our issues.  Ms. Duggan has acknowledged that we come with “Clean Hands”.  Our issues – Surprise Billing, Employer Reporting, and the big Medicare concerns dealing with the Observation Trap, COBRA as Medicare compliant, and HSA’s – have nothing to do with our incomes.  We are here to solve problems, to represent our clients.

Senator Brown is the sponsor of S. 753 which would allow observation stays to be counted toward the three day mandatory inpatient stay for Medicare coverage of a skilled nursing facility.  This happens to be one of our priorities.

We talked about the Medicare COBRA and HSA issues in Senator Brown’s office three days before my friend asked his questions.  H.R. 2564 and H.R. 3796 address these problems.  Our members discussed these bills with every Congressman and legislative aide we met.

Our #1 issue was Surprise Billing / Balance Billing.  As Congressman Walden noted, 1 in 5 emergency room visits and 1 in 6 hospital admissions produce a Surprise Bill.  We’ve discussed and defined Surprise Billing in previous posts.  Our goal is to take the unsuspecting client out of the equation and to focus on reimbursement being tied to the median in-network amount determined by reasonable, contracted amounts paid by private health plans to similar providers in a geographic area.  Obviously, we don’t want our clients forced into arbitration.

Our friends and clients count on us for good advice and to be alert to their needs.  Our periodic trips to Washington and our state capitols allow us to work with our elected officials to make health insurance, the way most Americans access and pay for health care, better.  We carry with us two messages wherever we go.  All health care is local.  And, we are all on the same team.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Pictures – Looking For Something To Read At The Library Of Congress – David L Cunix

And – A Plane Washington – David L Cunix

 

 

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February 4, 2020

Posted on February 5, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

Morning Joe broke for a commercial moments after I had turned on the television.  The first ad was from You Know Who, one of the largest marketers of insurance in this country.  They don’t like to admit that they sell insurance.  They prefer to advertise that they endorse certain products.  Yeah. Yeah.  In this day and age of 10 second and 20 second spots, this one full minute Medicare Supplement advertisement felt like a documentary.  As soon as that commercial ended, a new ad, from a different company began.  This one featured a former football star, 40+ years past his glory, pitching all of the free stuff that came with some unnamed Medicare Advantage policy.  The 30 second commercial for Tylenol was a welcomed relief.

I turned 65 today.  That stack of junk mail pictured above is a small fraction of the solicitations I’ve received in the last year.  One company, You Know Who, has been sending stuff to both my home and office.  As an official old person, I find that the television shows that I watch seem to be sponsored by medications, investment companies, and Medicare products.  The newspaper, yes I still get the Plain Dealer delivered, has envelopes inserted for Medicare products.  I sometimes watch football just to be a part of a different demographic.

I had a doctor’s appointment this morning.  My first on Medicare.  I presented my Medicare Card and my Medicare Supplement Card.  I won’t mention the company since I don’t want this to be seen as a recommendation of a particular insurer.  My previous coverage was a Grandmothered $5,500 deductible HSA qualified policy with Anthem Blue Cross.  My January premium was over $800.  My new Medicare premium for a Plan G contract is around $125 per month and my deductible for Part B services is $198!  The doctor’s staff gladly accepted my Medicare Card.  I now have the best, most comprehensive insurance I’ve had in almost 30 years.  And I am covered in all fifty states.

There are people who misuse the word Medicare and apply it to a very different type of coverage, to a policy that covers 100% of everything.  That isn’t Medicare.  That is a fantasy.   Medicare, with its deductibles and copayments, was designed to pay approximately 75% to 80% of a beneficiary’s medical bills.  But just as some long to make Medicare even more comprehensive, there are others trying to weaken it.  As noted in a recent post, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is still fighting the existence of Medicare fifty-five years after its creation.  And Mitch McConnell has targeted both Social Security and Medicare for cuts after the next election.  The impact this could have on those reliant on these programs is beyond comprehension.  Some might caution that we should first wait to see the results before we raise our concerns.  But those are the very same people who would have repealed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act without any replacement.

My health insurance, the way I will access and pay for care, changed last Saturday.  I am now on Medicare.  But my concern, and the concern of other insurance agents around this country, is unchanged.  We are here to make this system work.  And as our system changes, to make that new one work, too.  About 1,000 of us will be in Washington at the end of this month to meet with members of this administration, the House, and the Senate.  Now is the time to let us know your thoughts and your concerns so that we can share them with the people who write the rules.  That, too, is part of our job.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – Junk Mail – David L Cunix

 

 

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The New Normal 2020

Posted on January 24, 2020 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

Senator George McGovern told Senator Sherrod Brown a story about a time, in 1980, that he was standing in line at a Sioux Falls supermarket.  “…he saw two women standing in front of him paying for their groceries with food stamps, the program no one in Washington had done more to expand then McGovern.  Not having noticed that their senior senator was standing nearby, they were discussing the upcoming Senate race between McGovern and his Republican challenger, James Abnor.  With all of the major problems in our economy, one woman said as she handed the clerk the food stamps, ‘I can’t vote for McGovern.  He’s for too many of those giveaway programs!” (From Desk 88 by Senator Sherrod Brown)

Today is the new normal.  The past is just the past.  The women in line were oblivious to the irony.  They weren’t the recipients of government largesse or even a helping hand.  Apparently they no longer remembered struggling to feed their families.  Their food stamps were THEIR food stamps, as normal for them as their homes or their family pets.  But please don’t spend my money on someone else.  That would be a giveaway.

And that brings us to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  Today is the new normal.  The past is just the past.  Cancer survivors come into my office during the annual open enrollment period (November 1st – December 15th) to purchase or change health insurance policies without the fear that their preexisting conditions will inhibit the transaction.  Those clients come from across the political spectrum, from the far right to the equally far left.  What they share, aside from preexisting conditions that would have made the purchase of insurance coverage nearly impossible in 2009, is little understanding or appreciation of how Obamacare has opened the door for them.  Today is the new normal.

The expansion of Medicaid under the PPACA is also part of the new normal.  Some of my most virulent anti-Obama / anti-Obamacare clients have taken advantage of this free health care.  And thank G-d for it.  Bringing Medicaid to the working poor, people making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, opens the door for routine care and necessary medication to individuals and families who might not have been able to afford such care.  And, importantly, that door is the front door.  Obamacare removed the stigma attached to Medicare.

In January 2020, Americans expect to have their preexisting conditions covered.  They expect their children to be covered until they are 26 years old by a parent’s policy.  And if their 27 year old can’t get a job, possibly Medicaid.  American women expect maternity to be covered and men concern themselves with how to combat prostate cancer not whether or not their surgeries or radiation will be paid.

The American public has been lulled into complacency.  The benefits of Obamacare have been disconnected from the law.  It is as if Obamacare could be ruled unconstitutional and eliminated, but we get to keep all of the good stuff.  Mitch McConnell was recently asked about his support of the Texas lawsuit to undo the PPACA’s protection for preexisting conditions.  He said, “There’s nobody in the Senate that I’m familiar with who’s not in favor of coverage for preexisting conditions”.

A reader recently complained that this blog was too political.  Really?  Those were politicians who negotiated, argued, and crafted the compromises ten years ago that created the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  There have been politicians trying to destroy the law for the last ten years while other politicians have fought hard to save it.  It is all about politics and it is my job to chronicle the fight.  What it is not about is YOUR health.  The debate is about how medical providers are compensated.  Who pays and how much?  What was once about hospitals and doctors now encompasses hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, medical testing equipment, therapists, and countless others attached to the business of health.  Every one of them has an army of lobbyists in Washington and every state capitol.  Hell yes this is political.

The new normal in 2020 isn’t perfect.  Our premiums are too high.  Prescription drug pricing is out of control.  There is plenty of room for improvement.  But denying the safety net of Obamacare is a lot like complaining about government giveaways while paying for one’s groceries with food stamps.

Dave

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – All Was Perfect In The Turtles’ World – David L Cunix

Bonus – Happy Together

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In Other Breaking News

Posted on December 20, 2019 by dave@cunixinsurance.com

The President was bragging.  The car radio, tuned to CNN, was playing President Trump’s press conference.  Among his other claims of success, real or imagined, was his victory, yesterday, in the Supreme Court.  He quickly corrected himself and changed it to the Appeals Court.  He was talking about the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declaring the Individual Mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) unconstitutional.  Mr. Trump was elated.  He claimed that it was the Individual Mandate that made health insurance expensive.

Read the decision.

Most of the people I know in this industry, from across the political spectrum, realize that the Individual Mandate could lower premiums by expanding the available pool of clients to include the youngest and healthiest amongst us.  Since its origin from within the Heritage Foundation through the introduction of Clintoncare, Romneycare, and the creation of Medicare Part D (Rx) it has been widely accepted that plans that accept everyone (guaranteed issue) and that cover the most unhealthy (preexisting conditions) must be structured to incentivize participation by the entire eligible population.  The Individual Mandate only became a Republican strawman when the PPACA neared passage in 2010.

This blog has discussed the Texas lawsuit, the effort by 18 states and the Trump administration to declare the PPACA unconstitutional, in numerous posts.  We continue to cover it because the lawsuit’s success could eliminate coverage for nearly 54 million Americans with preexisting conditions and disrupt the way every one of us accesses and pays for health care.  Yes, all of us.  The elimination of Obamacare, its rules, its regulations, its heart, will impact individuals, employees covered by group health insurance, Medicare beneficiaries, and entire industries.   Over and above health, and that should be enough, we are also discussing about 20% of our economy.  But, I digress.  Mr. Trump is elated.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the part of this administration in charge of implementing our system had nothing to say about this latest court decision.  Here is the link to the department’s press releases of the last week.  If the Texas lawsuit succeeded, the nation would turn to HHS for a solution.  How would we cover preexisting conditions?  How would our system react?   As is so often in this administration, creating havoc is everyone’s job.  Solving problems is no one’s.

One of the parties in the lawsuit is the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.  They aren’t just upset with Obamacare.  The AAPS is still fighting the creation of Medicare!   OY.

Though many legal scholars have derided the underlying legal argument at the heart of the Texas lawsuit, one would be foolish to rely on logic at a time like this.  Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), was quoted in a Kaiser Health News article as saying, “I am not aware of a single senator who said they were voting to repeal Obamacare when they voted to eliminate the individual mandate penalty”.  Yes, he was only trying to irreversibly damage the law.  He didn’t mean to kill it!  There are members of this administration that believe that dismantling the law would only impact residents in the 18 states pushing the lawsuit.  As noted recently, H B 390 was just introduced in the Ohio House to address these issues.  It is, at best, a start.

We just completed our annual Open Enrollment Period for individuals under age 65 and the Annual Enrollment Period for Medicare beneficiaries.  In truth, I’m exhausted.  But even more tiring is this struggle to make sure that Americans, at least the ones I impact, have health insurance, the way most of us access and pay for health care.  Yesterday’s breaking news was that the federal government and a group of states are working hard to destroy our health care system without any idea what would happen if, G-d forbid, they succeeded.

Oh yeah, there was another major news story yesterday, but this is an insurance blog!

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – Broken! – David L Cunix

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