Fewer Uninsured. Hospital Profits Soaring. Thanks, ObamaCare

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Bruce Japsen: Hospital Profits Soar As Obamacare Prescribes More Paying Patients

Hospital operators continue to see profits and revenue not seen in a decade thanks to the Affordable Care Act and related efforts to sign up uninsured patients to coverage so facilities can reduce unpaid medical bills. Large hospital operators HCA Holdings HCA +2.78% (HCA), Tenet Healthcare THC +2.5% (THC) and Community Health Systems (CYH) in the last month issued robust 2014 earnings, revenues and large declines in uncompensated care costs, a key measure of expenses.

“We reported Tenet’s strongest quarterly EBITDA in more than 10 years,” Tenet chief executive officer Trevor Fetter boasted last week of a key earnings acronym in the hospital chain’s 2014 fourth quarter. Hospital operators are reporting more paying patients and fewer uninsured, which means far fewer unpaid medical bills. “For the last four quarters, the decline in self-pay admits and adjusted admits and the increase in Medicaid in expansion states have grown quarter over quarter,” Community Health CFO Larry Cash said.

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Obamacare passed five years ago this month. Here’s what happened to the private sector since: onforb.es/1aP6xY4 http://t.co/xUBQhZ2hLV

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Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) March 06, 2015

Hospital operators continue to see profits & revenue not seen in a decade, thanks to the Affordable Care Act: onforb.es/1GEKMo0

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  (@Forbes) March 02, 2015

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CBO lowers the 10-year cost of ACA marketplace subsidies by $209 billion from what it projected in January. cbo.gov/sites/default/…

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Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) March 09, 2015

BOOM: Latest quarterly Gallup poll shows uninsured rate down to 12.3% (or lower!) acasignups.net/15/03/04/boom-… http://t.co/LMMQ37AlHE

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  (@LOLGOP) March 08, 2015

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87% of people signing up on healthcare.gov qualify for premium subsidies & 60% qualify for cost-sharing help. aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports…

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Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) March 10, 2015

CBO: Net +12M people had health insurance last year bc of Obamacare. Sees +7M more this year and +5M more in 2016. http://t.co/zXxdvhYoEw

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Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) January 26, 2015

Medicare Saves $15B On Prescription Drug Costs. Thanks, ObamaCare

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Sarah Ferris: Medicare Drug Costs Shrinking Under ObamaCare

ObamaCare has led to substantial savings in prescription drug costs and a strong increase in the use of preventive services, administration officials announced Tuesday. “Our parents and grandparents on Medicare saved more than $15 billion on prescription drugs since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010,” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said. Those savings amount to nearly $1,600 per person enrolled in Medicare — an increase from about $1,400 in average savings last year. Tackling prescription drug costs has been a major goal of the Obama administration, pledging to close the coverage gap, known as the “doughnut hole,” by 2020. Because

Medicare drug plans have a limit on how much they pay for medication, beneficiaries are forced to pay for their treatments out of pocket before their catastrophic coverage kicks in. Under ObamaCare, recipients in the “doughnut hole” receive a rebate or discount from the government to help them save on prescription drug costs until the gap can ultimately be closed. Burwell also highlighted the growing use of preventive healthcare coverage under ObamaCare — another top issue for the administration. Many provider groups only signed onto healthcare reform with the promise that preventive care would be a central tenet. Nearly 40 million people have used at least one of Medicare’s free preventive services in the last year alone, the secretary said. Nearly 5 million enrollees received the annual wellness exam.

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Thanks Mitch! @StevenTDennis: Uninsured rate cut in half in 1 year in Mitch McConnell's Kentucky http://t.co/ebsQFvrU8T”

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BWD (@theonlyadult) February 24, 2015

Medicare drug costs shrinking under ObamaCare: ow.ly/JAOda

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The Hill (@thehill) February 24, 2015

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The COMPLETE 2015 Graph: 32 Million People in 1 Image acasignups.net/15/02/23/compl… @ThePlumLineGS @DemFromCT @Jed_Graham http://t.co/vSPRThLI2x

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Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) February 23, 2015

Medicare drug costs shrinking under ObamaCare bit.ly/1LCBPi4

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The Hill Healthwatch (@hillhealthwatch) February 24, 2015

Lowered Healthcare Costs? Thanks, ObamaCare

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Tara Culp-Ressler: How The Obama Administration Is Getting Serious About Lowering Health Costs

The Obama administration unveiled an ambitious plan on Monday that will make historic changes to the way that doctors get paid. The ultimate goal is to tie more of doctors’ payments to the quality of care they provide, hopefully driving down the trillions of dollars that the U.S. currently spends on health services every year. The reforms are targeted at Medicare, the government program that provides coverage for Americans over the age of 64. Most Medicare providers currently get paid through what’s called a “fee for service” system. They’re paid a flat free for every test or procedure they perform, regardless of whether those services actually improve their patients’ health. Now, the administration wants to shift the program so that more of its payments are tied to health outcomes.

Essentially, that means providers will be rewarded for keeping their patients healthy, and penalized for unnecessary services that don’t advance that goal. Proponents of payment reform are encouraged by the move — which they see as a serious step toward creating a health care system that’s based on the value, rather than the sheer volume, of services. The Affordable Care Act has been slowly moving in this direction over the past few years. The health law created alternative payment models — called “Accountable Care Organizations,” or ACOs — to incentivize providers to work together to improve patient care and cut down on costs. So far, there’s been some evidence that ACOs are successfully improving the quality of health care for Medicare patients. Some are also starting to generate cost savings. If ACOs save enough money, the participating providers earn bonuses, a goal that about a fourth of of them hit last year.

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How the Obama Administration is getting serious about lowering health costs thkpr.gs/3615915

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ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) January 27, 2015

1st clear indication we're leaving fee-for-service in much of healthcare. As I said in 2009, it's the right direction nyr.kr/1zqEwRq

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Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) January 27, 2015

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Rock climb ✓ Work out ✓ #GetCovered ✓ A healthy lifestyle includes getting health coverage: healthcare.gov http://t.co/Jwxu3Bo4mt

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The First Lady (@FLOTUS) January 29, 2015

If you need health insurance, find a plan that's right for you right now: ofa.bo/g2Y7 #GetCovered

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Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 26, 2015

The President’s Day

Ebola suvivor Dr. Kent Brantly is applauded by President Barack Obama

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Healthcare professionals listen as President Barack Obama speaks about the government’s Ebola response

With her children sleeping by her lap, Amber Brantly, wife of Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, listens during an event attended by her husband and other American health care workers fighting Ebola as President Barack Obama speaks about Ebola

McAllen, Texas Saved $20M On Healthcare?! Thanks ObamaCare

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NYT: A Health Care Success Story

IT may have been the most influential magazine article of the past decade. In June of 2009, the doctor and writer Atul Gawande published a piece in The New Yorker called “The Cost Conundrum,” which examined why the small border city of McAllen, Tex., was the most expensive place for health care in the United States. The article became mandatory reading in the White House. President Obama convened an Oval Office meeting to discuss its key finding that the high cost of health care in the country was directly tied to a system that rewarded the overuse of care. Five years later, the situation has changed. Where McAllen once illustrated the problem of American health care, the city is now showing us how the problem can be solved, largely because of the Affordable Care Act that Mr. Obama signed into law in 2010.

The problem was that doctors in McAllen were responding to reimbursement incentives in the American health care system that rewarded activity rather than value. The more procedures and visits a doctor billed, the more he got paid. The Affordable Care Act was designed to change that. One of its provisions created the Medicare Shared Savings Program, which rewards doctors for keeping their patients healthy. Participation in the program requires primary care doctors to create networks, called accountable care organizations, or A.C.O.s, to better coordinate patient care. These networks are reimbursed for delivering high-quality care below a baseline of historical Medicare costs. In 2012, doctors in McAllen formed the Rio Grande Valley Accountable Care Organization Health Providers, and signed up for this experiment. The early results are in, and they are stunning: From April 2012 to the end of 2013, the Rio Grande Valley A.C.O. saved more than $20 million from its Medicare baseline. These changes didn’t just save money; they also improved patients’ health. From 2012 to 2013, the number of patients achieving control of their diabetes rose 11.8 percentage points. The number receiving vaccinations rose 12.2 percentage points.

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President delivers remarks at Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

4:05 EDT: The President delivers remarks at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia

ObamaCare Means No Longer Living With Perpetual Pain

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57andfemale

A simple observation:

I got my bone density test today. I have had serious hip and back pain for over a dozen years. Because I am one of 20% of adult asthmatics who cannot take any NSAID’s, I live in perpetual pain. Self-employed, no insurance until ACA.

I got a bone density test today – no co-pay. Because PBO made even the most basic insurance affordable AND comprehensive.

I’m seeing a chiropractor as well as regular doctors. I need some x-rays so we know how aggressive we can be with exercise and PT. If I need cartillage-building or bone-building therapy, I have insurance. thank you, PBO and Dem’s.

All I want is to be able to run up and down the stairs to do laundry. To clean my house. To have a weekend where I can clean my sewing room, throw fabric in boxes, and feel alive the next day.

I am closer to that because of ACA. Thank you POTUS. Thank you, Nancy Pelosi.

Now let’s sustain this progress and keep the Senate and take back the House.

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A Life Was Saved Today Thanks To ObamaCare

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Jane C. Timm: Study: Obamacare Helping More Youth To Get Mental Health Treatment

Young adults have a higher risk of mental health problems and substance abuse – both issues that the U.S. health care system traditionally has struggled to treat. But according to a new study, the number of high-risk youth seeking and receiving affordable care is on the rise, thanks to an Obamacare provision that allows young people to stay on their parents’ health plan until they turn 26. Two million young people now have health care coverage because of the provision, the study notes, but the biggest shift has been with youth demographics that are most at risk.

Among 18-25 year olds exhibiting signs of mental health or substance abuse problems, 5.3% more received mental health care than a comparable group of 26-35 year olds, researchers from Johns Hopkins and Harvard found in the study, published this month in the health care journal Health Affairs. The cost of care has decreased, too: Uninsured doctor visits requiring patients to pay out of pocket were down 12.4%, while the number of covered visits rose 12.9%. Three-quarters of all mental illnesses begin by age 24, according to the National Institute of Health. Before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, nearly 60% of all mental health or substance abuse care for young Americans was paid for out-of-pocket. Mental health care coverage is often prohibitively expensive, a factor that respondents routinely cite as a reason for not seeking care.

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SOME GOOD NEWS: Obamacare helping more youth to get mental health treatment msnbc.com/msnbc/study-ob…

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  (@LOLGOP) August 12, 2014

ObamaCare Is Not Collapsing And That Makes The GOP Mad

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Joshua Green: Dire Obamacare Prediction Falls Hilariously Flat

The story of Obamacare over the last year has in many ways been a story about how the various claims made by conservatives about why the law would collapse have systematically fallen apart as the Affordable Care Act has gone into effect. The website debacle was so bad that nobody was going to sign up. Actually, lots of people signed up. The net number of people insured was going to go down, not up, because Obamacare would force insurers to cancel their plans.

Nope, the uninsured rate has gone down. One of the scariest claims was that premiums were going to shoot up because only the sick and the old would sign up. Back in March, the Hill published a representative story under the headline, “O-Care Premiums to Skyrocket.” Here we are five months later, and those insurance officials have begun reporting their premium increases for next year. To put it mildly, those increases do not seem to fit the definition of “skyrocketing.”

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Kaiser reporter: Dire Predictions About Doctor Shortage Post-Obamacare Haven’t Panned Out http://t.co/mFndJ965Ja #ObamaCare #ACAWorks #Obama

— ThisMagicalEarth (@MagicalEarth) August 13, 2014

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I wrote about a dire Obamacare ‘rate shock’ prediction that just fell hilariously flat http://t.co/OlNsKi1om3 via @BW #splat

— Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) August 12, 2014

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Wendell Potter: Dire Predictions About Doctor Shortage Post-Obamacare Haven’t Panned Out

Among the many predictions of Obamacare-related catastrophe was that the law, by enabling millions to join the ranks of the insured, would force us all to wait longer to see a doctor and very possibly lead to a code blue for U.S. health care. “Doctor shortage, increased demand could crash health care system,” A CNN report warned last October. A few months earlier, a Forbes headline predicted that, “Thanks to Obamacare, a 20,000 Doctor Shortage Is Set to Quintuple.”To find out if the critics’ were prescient or way off base, Kaiser Health News reporter Phil Galewitz went looking for problems. He didn’t find many. “Five months into the biggest expansion of health coverage in 50 years,” he wrote after interviewing officials from more than two dozen health centers and multi-group practices across the country, “there are few reports of patients facing major delays getting care.”

One reason the system has not been overwhelmed is that, although we might not have as many doctors as some think we should have, we do have a rapidly growing supply of mid-level medical providers — like physician assistants and nurse practitioners — who now treat many of our health problems. It probably won’t be long before most of us are treated — and treated just fine — by a well-trained professional who doesn’t have an M.D. after his or her name. A couple of weeks ago, I sustained an injury that my wife felt was serious enough that I should either go to the ER or see my doctor. When I called my doctor’s office, I was told that while the doctor was on vacation, a nurse practitioner could see me right away. And she did. And I lived to tell about it.

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Thanks To ObamaCare, Seeing A Doctor Is No Longer A Luxury

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Claire Bolderson: Obamacare In Kentucky

“I am so happy,” says Sizemore as she waits at the Grace Community Health Centre in Clay County, Kentucky, “I’ve not had insurance since I turned 19.” But Sizemore is also nervous. She is seriously overweight and was warned in her teens that she was likely to develop diabetes. Without health insurance she has not been able to afford tests or check-ups to see if she has indeed got the disease.  Sizemore is one of 421,000 people in Kentucky who’ve signed up since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, came into force last October. Like many, she now qualifies for Medicaid, the government programme that pays for health care for the poorest Americans. Under the new law, the federal government offers states money to expand Medicaid so that many more people on very low wages, like Liberty Sizemore, are covered. Benita Adams may be one of the people the Governor has in mind. The 62-year-old grandmother lives on the edge of the rolling Appalachian Mountains in eastern Kentucky. She owns her home but works two jobs as a dental assistant to make ends meet.

Adams has had no health insurance since her divorce 30 years ago. A recent heart operation left her with a $67,000 bill. Although the hospital waived around half of that, she still pays $50 a month to clear the rest. “I used to say, if I get hurt just let me be killed because I can’t afford to pay any more hospital bills,” she says. But Adams no longer has to worry. Under Obamacare, she qualifies for a private insurance plan with a hefty government subsidy that covers the monthly payments in full. “Everyone was mad over Obamacare but it’s just wonderful, it’s really helping people,” Adams says as she lists the medical appointments she has been to since getting insured. Liberty Sizemore, waiting for her blood test results at the Grace Community Health Centre, feels the same. “I was so worried,” she says. “But now I can get better because I have a doctor. I have a doctor and that’s a relief off my shoulders, more than you can know.”

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