Protecting Health Coverage in Louisiana Task Force Final Report
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Protecting Health Coverage in Louisiana Task Force Final Report Gov. John Bel Edwards established the Protecting Health Coverage in Louisiana Task Force through Executive Order Number JBE 19-4 (with amendments in Executive Order JBE 19-11). The Task Force was charged with studying the impacts of the loss of health coverage and health protections that will occur if the Texas v. United States lawsuit is successful, thus ending some or all of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This report summarizes the impact and outlines how Louisiana law compares to current federal protections. In addition, the report shows the fiscal costs involved if Texas v. United States is successful, thus providing a roadmap of both the policies and funding needed to maintain health coverage and health protections for Louisianans. The task force met four times and heard reports and analysis from Stephen Barnes of the University of Louisiana, Sarah Balog of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Korey Harvey of Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Stacey Roussel of the Louisiana Budget Project, among others. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Louisiana stands to lose $3.6 billion from the federal government if the Affordable Care Act is invalidated, with an estimated 494,000 Louisianans losing health coverage. The outcome of Texas v. United States could invalidate some or all of the provisions of the ACA, making it difficult to quantify the exact funding necessary today to ensure no change in health coverage status for Louisianans. It would cost more than $536 million for Louisiana to “backfill” the loss of federal subsidies for those enrolled in the federal marketplace and keep key pre-existing condition protections, as imagined in Act 412 of the 2019 Regular Legislative Session. Without this funding, key individual market pre-existing condition protections do not exist. Without additional funding from the federal government or additional action from Congress, if Texas v. United States is successful, the state would be left to fill budget holes, Medicaid coverage for working adults would be diminished or cut altogether and Louisiana’s uninsured rate would be at risk of going from a historic low of 8 percent in 2018 back to pre-ACA levels, which were more than 17 percent. 1 Protecting Health Coverage in Louisiana Task Force Members of the Task Force: Lance Barbour, Louisiana Government Relations Director for the American Cancer Society Action Network (At-large appointee representing a consumer health group) Stephen Barnes, PhD, Director, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (At-large appointee with expertise in economics) Senator Regina Barrow, (Senate Health & Welfare Committee designee) Matthew Block, Governor’s Executive Counsel (Governor’s designee) Jeanie Donovan, Policy Director at Louisiana Department of Health (Secretary of Health’s designee) Jeff Drozda, CEO at the Louisiana Association of Health Plans (At-large appointee representing the insurance industry) Korey Harvey, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana (At-large appointee representing the insurance industry) Beverly Haydel, President/CEO, Sequitur Consulting (Attorney General’s designee) Brenda Lefebure, COO / Director of Operations, Rural Hospital Coalition of Louisiana (At-large appointee representing health care providers) Christina Lord, MD, Physician (At-large appointee representing health care providers) Tiffany Netters, Executive Director, 504HealthNet (At-large appointee representing a consumer health group) Frank Opelka, Deputy Commissioner of Health, Life, & Annuity at Louisiana Department of Insurance (Commissioner of Insurance’s designee) Representative Joe Stagni, (House Health & Welfare designee) General Background In 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was signed into law on March 23, 2010. The law was designed to expand health insurance coverage and implemented a number of patient protections. The law accomplished this by introducing a series of requirements for individuals, employers and insurers and by offering states an opportunity to expand the Medicaid program with costs predominantly borne by the federal government. These goals were supported by a significant commitment of federal dollars generated through new taxes and fees targeted primarily at the pharmaceutical and insurance sectors. Since the passage of the law, the number of Americans without health benefits has fallen dramatically, especially in states like Louisiana that expanded Medicaid under the ACA. 2 Protecting Health Coverage in Louisiana Task Force Estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show a steady decrease in Louisiana’s overall uninsured rate since the enactment of the ACA. This data shows the uninsured rate dropping from 17.8 percent in 2010 to 8.0 percent in 2018.1 In 2015, the Louisiana Health Insurance Survey showed an uninsured rate of 22.7 percent for adults. Due to the ACA’s individual and group market subsidies and protections along with the state’s adoption of Medicaid expansion in 2016, the Louisiana Health Insurance Survey found that the uninsured rate was cut in half by 2017 to 11.4 percent. According to the survey, the number of uninsured adults in Louisiana fell from 644,217 to 321,477 between 2015 and 2017.2 The Urban Institute estimates that 494,000 fewer Louisianans would have health insurance if the ACA is overturned.3 Texas v. United States background/status A group of twenty states, led by Texas and including Louisiana, sued the federal government in February 2018, challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. Since the initial suit was filed, two states have withdrawn from the lawsuit. The plaintiffs, including Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, argue that the requirement that applicable individuals maintain minimum essential coverage (commonly referred to as the individual mandate) is unconstitutional. In NFIB v. Sebelius the Supreme Court of the United States found that the individual mandate could not pass constitutional muster under the Commerce Clause but could be read with a “saving construction” which is permissible under the taxing power whereby the individual mandate serves only as a condition triggering the valid tax represented by the shared responsibility payment. 4 The Texas v. United States plaintiffs reason that the decision to reduce the shared responsibility payment to zero dollars in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act precludes the continued use of 1 Stacey Roussel, “Louisiana’s uninsured rate remains low as national rate rises.” September 10, 2019. https://www.labudget.org/2019/09/louisianas-uninsured-rate-remains-low-as-national-rate-rises/ 2 Stephen R. Barnes et al., “Louisiana Health Insurance Survey 2017,” http://ldh.la.gov/assets/media/2017- Louisiana-Health-Insurance-Survey-Report.pdf. 3 Linda J. Blumberg, Matthew Buettgens, John Holahan, Clare Pan. “State-by-State Estimates of the Coverage and Funding Consequences of Full Repeal of the ACA.” The Urban Institute. March 2019. https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/100000/repeal_of_the_aca_by_state_2.pdf (see page 9) 4 NFIB v. Sebelius, Supreme Court of the United States, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11- 393c3a2.pdf 3 Protecting Health Coverage in Louisiana Task Force this saving construction to uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the taxing power. Plaintiffs argue that the entire ACA should fall along with the individual mandate. In their filing, the plaintiff states note that if the court will not go this far, the court should “at the very minimum” strike down the core preexisting condition protections – guaranteed issue and community rating. Those defending the law point out that in NFIB, the Supreme Court wrote that the shared responsibility payment provides people “a lawful choice” of whether or not to purchase health insurance. That lawful choice remains today, they argue, with the caveat that now the statutorily required tax amount set by the 2017 Congress is zero dollars. On December 14, 2018, District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed with the plaintiff states in full, declaring the individual mandate unconstitutional and deciding that the entire law should fall along with the mandate. On December 18, 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s decision regarding the constitutionality of the individual mandate but sent the case back to Judge O’Connor for a more thorough analysis of what provisions would be severed along with the individual mandate. The Fifth Circuit does not provide any analysis of its own, stating: “It may still be that none of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate, even after this inquiry is concluded. It may be that all of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate. It may also be that some of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate, and some is not.”5 In light of the federal government’s decision not to defend the law, a group of states, led by California, along with the U.S. House of Representatives intervened. Amicus briefs filed siding with intervenor states include: the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, America’s Essential Hospitals, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians,