President Joe Biden on Jan. 28 launched his Affordable Care
Act-centric health insurance agenda with an executive order that will reopen
the federal health exchange for a special enrollment period.
Also, the Biden administration directed CMS to roll back "demonstrations
and waivers under Medicaid and the ACA that may reduce coverage or undermine
the programs, including work requirements," according to a White House
press release.
The new executive order demonstrates the administration's
emphasis on expanding coverage through the ACA. The special enrollment period
(SEP) will run from Feb. 15 to May 15 and will be bolstered by a more
aggressive effort to promote enrollment through advertising.
Dan Mendelson, founder of Avalere Health, says that he expects
more promotion will have a notable effect on enrollment during the upcoming
SEP.
"There are tens of millions of unused dollars for the
promotion of these exchange plans, [and] they can promote Medicaid. Just by
virtue of getting out there and educating people of their rights under the
Medicaid program, they could probably expand enrollment by a million or a
couple million people," Mendelson says.
Incoming White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on Jan. 20
released a memo requesting federal officials pause implementation of final
rules issued in the last days of the Trump administration for 60 days after
their published effective date.
However, there are some limitations on how much the new
administration can change course on rules that have already been finalized. Mendelson
notes that resource constraints and the bidding cycle mean it's simply too late
for some changes to happen.
For example, Mendelson predicts that the new administration
"will not have either the time or inclination to dig into the managed care
reg that specifies how MA [Medicare Advantage] plans are going to operate in
the next calendar year. They might agree with some of it, they might not agree
with some of it — but the bids start, and before you know it, you’re off to the
races." Trump's CMS issued MA rules for the
2022 plan year on Jan. 15, and finalized other changes to Part D on Jan. 19.
Loren Adler, associate director of the USC-Brookings Schaeffer
Initiative for Health Policy, says he expects to see the administration move
quickly on controversial CMS waivers like Medicaid work requirements and block
grants in part because of the ongoing legal battles they have instigated.
No comments:
Post a Comment