Tag: insurance

Newly Insured Californians Wary Of Costs But Embracing Coverage

  • May 29, 2015
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Many Californians who obtained health insurance last year said they struggled to pay their premiums, although having coverage made them more confident about affording future medical care, according to a survey released Thursday. Nearly half of newly insured adults in the state said it was difficult to afford the monthly charge and more than a third delayed or went without care, according to the survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) The data highlight that health care costs continue to be a worry for many low-income Californians, even with more affordable insurance options available through Obamacare. “Most of them are still in somewhat precarious financial positions,” said Rachel Garfield, senior researcher at the

The Post-Launch Problem: The Affordable Care Act’s Persistently High Administrative Costs

  • May 27, 2015
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Last year we, and many others, drew attention to the chaotic and costly roll out of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) exchanges. The chaos is mostly over (unless King prevails over Burwell), but the costs will linger on. The roughly $6 billion in exchange start-up costs pale in comparison to the ongoing insurance overhead that the ACA has added to our health care system — more than a quarter of a trillion dollars through 2022. Bloated Administrative Costs We calculated these new overhead costs from the official National Health Expenditure Projections for 2012-2022 released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)’ Office of the Actuary in July 2014. The projections included separate tables projecting costs with, and without, the effects of the ACA, allowing calculation of