#ThanksObama: $2.6 Trillion Saved On Healthcare

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Carolyn Y. Johnson: U.S. Will Spend $2.6 Trillion Less On Health Care Than Expected Before Obamacare, Study Projects

A new study predicts that the federal forecast of national health care spending under President Obama’s signature health law was a big overestimate — by $2.6 trillion over a five-year period. Looking forward, the study’s authors also point to recent evidence that a 2014 uptick in health spending that had seemed to signal a return to higher growth may have been temporary. If slower growth persists, they argue that it will become harder to argue that it is just the economy and not the cost containment policies enabled by the Affordable Care Act that are tempering spending. Hempstead said it’s becoming increasingly plausible that the federal policies included in the Affordable Care Act —

and its ripple effects as programs implemented within Medicare influence the private market — are having a tempering effect. Hempstead thinks that some of the policies that came with health reform have contributed. For example, she pointed to a policy that was intended to cut hospital readmissions by introducing financial penalties for hospitals with excessive readmissions. Being readmitted to the hospital isn’t good for patients or for payers — a report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that 3.3 million adult hospital readmissions racked up $41.3 billion in hospital costs in 2011. Hospital readmission rates fell after the Affordable Care Act was implemented, both for conditions targeted by policy and those that weren’t.

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U.S.will spend $2.6 trillion less on health care than expected before Obamacare, study projects -The Washington Post https://t.co/dKMN0E3hwx

— Robert holgate (@415holgate) August 9, 2016

$2.5T In Savings?! Thanks, ObamaCare

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West Wing Reports: Guess How Much Healthcare Could Cost Now?

A report issued Wednesday says that the most recent official projections indicate that the U.S. will spend $2.5 TRILLION LESS on health care from 2014 until 2019 than had been originally estimated at the time the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010. That represents a nearly 11 percent decrease in projected spending, according to the report issued by the Urban Institute, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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Russ Britt: Obamacare Making Insurers More Responsive, Efficient: Study

A provision in Obamacare governing spending guidelines for health insurers essentially has forced carriers to become more efficient and responsive, a study released Wednesday finds. The joint study from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says minimum requirements in the Affordable Care Act that mandate how much insurers must spend on medical care resulted in savings of

$5 billion for consumers in 2011 and 2012, the first two full years after Obamacare was enacted in March 2010. For 2011 policies, insurers paid $1.1 billion in rebates. By 2012, insurers had adjusted premiums to comply with the new guidelines, though they still ended up paying more than $500 million in rebates. But that adjustment in premiums saved consumers an estimated $3.4 billion, Clemans-Cope says.

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Study by @RWJF @urbaninstitute finds Obamacare is making insurers more responsive, efficient | from @russbrittmktw http://t.co/hGjvLuuejU

— Steve Anderson (@EyeOnInsurance) May 14, 2015

Big change in projected healthcare costs. Trillions. http://t.co/SX169zCwWf

— Paul Brandus (and on Mastodon) (@WestWingReport) April 8, 2015

$7 Billion In Savings?! Thanks, ObamaCare

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Tara Culp-Ressler: Thanks To Obamacare, Hospitals Saved More Than $7 Billion Last Year

According to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), hospitals saved at least $7.4 billion last year, thanks in large part to reforms under Obamacare. The savings reflect a reduction in the so-called “uncompensated care” that hospitals provide to uninsured Americans, and are even greater than HHS officials predicted they would be at the beginning of this year. Since people without insurance typically don’t have any means to cover their medical bills, the cost of their treatment ends up falling on the hospital itself. Therefore, as more people gain coverage, it become less expensive for hospitals to care for their patients.

More than 16 million previously uninsured Americans have gotten covered under Obamacare, contributing to the biggest drop in the national uninsurance rate over the past four decades. The savings have been most pronounced in the states that agreed to accept Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion, which seeks to extend public insurance to additional low-income people. Nearly 70 percent of the savings documented in the HHS report — a total of $5 billion — occurred in the 29 states that have expanded Medicaid. And, if every state had agreed to add more people to their Medicaid rolls, their hospitals could have saved an extra $1.4 billion.

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Thanks to Obamacare, hospitals saved more than $7 billion last year http://t.co/huNXwAgsBV

— Mia Farrow 💙🏳️‍🌈 🌻 (@MiaFarrow) March 23, 2015

Like other surveys, a new RAND analysis finds a 16.9 million drop in uninsured adults as the ACA went into effect.http://t.co/Kwl2r93lIw

— Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) May 6, 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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https://twitter.com/theonlyadult/status/570246446785523713

Medicare drug costs shrinking under ObamaCare: http://t.co/qNDTWbUVxz

— The Hill (@thehill) February 24, 2015

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The COMPLETE 2015 Graph: 32 Million People in 1 Image http://t.co/DGcfXGcbB4 @ThePlumLineGS @DemFromCT @Jed_Graham pic.twitter.com/vSPRThLI2x

— Charles Gaba isn't paying for this account. (@charles_gaba) February 23, 2015

Medicare drug costs shrinking under ObamaCare http://t.co/w4iRddWrOk

— The Hill Healthwatch (@hillhealthwatch) February 24, 2015

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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Americans Deserve A Secure Retirement

President Barack Obama speaks after a tour of the U.S. Steel Irvin Plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania

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This is how you win the day

#MadeInAmerica: http://t.co/sxVFfet61C, pic.twitter.com/tk7sara6TH

— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) January 29, 2014

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https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/428544414214914051

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President Barack Obama signs a memorandum instructing the U.S. Treasury Department to create a new retirement account system after touring the U.S. Steel Irvin Plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania

President Barack Obama holds up a memorandum instructing the U.S. Treasury Department to create a new retirement account system