Mortality Rate Will Likely Increase Under Senate Healthcare Bill

Today (6/27/17) an article was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine by Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein from New York University on the effects of health insurance on mortality (1). The article has special significance because of pending healthcare legislation in the Senate.  

The Annals article concludes that the odds of dying among the insured relative to the uninsured is 0.71 to 0.97. However, the authors acknowledge that this is a very difficult study to conduct because of the nonrandomized, observational nature of the studies and lack of a strict separation between covered and uncovered Americans. For example, many people cycle in and out of insurance diluting differences between groups.

Of course, what is needed is a randomized trial, and surprisingly, one does exist which is discussed in the Annals article (1,2). In 2008, Oregon initiated a limited expansion of its Medicaid program for about 6,000 poor, able-bodied, uninsured adults aged 19 to 64 years through a lottery to win the opportunity to apply for Medicaid and to enroll if they met eligibility requirements. Compared to uninsured adults, mortality was 13% lower in the insured. However, the trial was underpowered and the mortality differences did not reach statistical significance.

Another study mentioned was one examining the mortality rates in New York, Maine, and Arizona after expansion of Medicaid (1,3). Compared to neighboring states that did not expand Medicaid, a significant decrease in all-cause mortality in the expansion states was observed (−25.4 deaths per 100,000 population; p = 0.02; Figure 1).

Figure 1. Unadjusted mortality and rates of Medicaid coverage among nonelderly adults before and after state Medicaid expansions (1997–2007). The vertical line represents the year during which the Medicaid expansions were implemented, meaning that year 1 was the first full year after the expansions.

Figure 1 shows roughly parallel death rates before Medicaid expansion, and a gradually widening split after Medicaid expansion. From this data, the authors calculated that Medicaid expansion to 176 adults would prevent one death per year.

On Monday (6/26/17), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that the pending Senate healthcare bill, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act, will result in 22 million fewer people having health insurance by 2026 (4,5). The bill would cut $772 billion in Medicaid spending and $408 billion in subsidies for individual enrollees. The net effect of these spending reductions is partially offset by $541 billion in tax cuts mostly to corporations and wealthier Americans. These numbers all approximate the effects under the similar House version of the bill that passed on May 4.

If Medicaid expansion prevents one death for each 176 enrolled (4), presumably dropping Medicaid for 176 Americans would result in one additional death per year. Given that the CBO estimates 22-23 million Americans will lose coverage under either bill, the potential increase in deaths is staggering. If either bill is passed, an increase in the death rate among the Medicaid population seems the likely consequence of the politics of reducing the Federal deficit and billions in tax cuts for corporations and the richest Americans.

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Editor, SWJPCC

References

1. Woolhandler S, Himmelstein DU. The relationship of health insurance and mortality: is lack of insurance deadly? Ann Int Med. June 27, 2017. Available at: http://annals.org/aim/latest (accessed 6/27/17) [CrossRef]
2. Baicker K, Taubman SL, Allen HL, Bernstein M, Gruber JH, Newhouse JP, Schneider EC, Wright BJ, Zaslavsky AM, Finkelstein AN; Oregon Health Study Group.The Oregon experiment--effects of Medicaid on clinical outcomes. N Engl J Med. 2013 May 2;368(18):1713-22. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
3. Sommers BD, Baicker K, Epstein AM. Mortality and access to care among adults after state Medicaid expansions. N Engl J Med. 2012 Sep 13;367(11):1025-34.  [CrossRef] [PubMed]
4. Congressional Budget Office. H.R. 1628, Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017. June 26, 2017. Available at: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52849 (accessed 6/26/17).
5. Frieden J. Senate GOP's ACA repeal bill would knock 22 million off insurance: CBO. MedPage Today. June 26, 2017. Available at: https://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/repeal-and-replace/66275?isalert=1&uun=g687171d5575R5764210u&xid=NL_breakingnews_2017-06-26 (accessed 6/26/17).

Cite as: Robbins RA. Mortality rate will likely increase under Senate healthcare bill. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2017;14(6):318-9. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc084-17 PDF 

Limited Choice of Obamacare Insurers in Some Parts of the Southwest

The New York Times is reporting that all of Arizona, much of Nevada, and portions of Utah and Colorado will have only one insurer available under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare) marketplace (Figure 1) (1).

Figure 1. New York Times compilation of insurance company announcements for providing coverage under the ACA or Obamacare.

About 35,000 people buying insurance in Affordable Care Act marketplaces in 45 counties could have no choice in carriers in Ohio and Missouri (Figure 1), This would be the first time that has happened since the marketplaces were opened in 2014.

Some insurance companies are still deciding what they will do in 2018, and others may reverse course, so these numbers could go up or down.

Most Americans get health insurance from a job or government program, but about 22 million people buy individual policies under Obamacare. More than half of them use Obamacare marketplaces, where most of them get a federal tax credit to help pay for coverage. The rest buy directly from an insurer or broker, outside the Obamacare marketplaces. A recent New York Times analysis showed that many insurers are now choosing to sell exclusively outside the marketplaces, where their customers are not eligible for federal subsidies. Because customers cannot use subsidies for these plans, many may not be able to afford coverage.

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Editor, SWJPCC

Reference

1. Park H, Carlsen A. For the first time, 45 counties could have no insurer in the Obamacare marketplaces. New York Times. June 9, 2017. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/09/us/counties-with-one-or-no-obamacare-insurer.html (accessed 6/12/17).

Cite as: Robbins RA. Limited choice of healthcare insurers in some parts of the southwest. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2017;14(6):295. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc074-17 PDF 

Withdraw of Insurers from ACA Markets Leaving Many Southwest Patients with Few or No Choices

Thirty-one percent of the nation’s counties are projected to have only one insurer offering health plans on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) exchanges next year, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation (1). Another 31% are projected to have only be only two. Most of the likely one-insurer counties are predominantly rural (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Estimated number of insurers participating in Affordable Care Act exchanges by county, 2017.

Particularly hard hit is Arizona where most of the rural portions of the state will have only one insurer and Pinal County will have none. Rural Nevada is similarly affected along with Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma and much of the Southeast US.

That would give exchange customers in large areas of the U.S. far less choice than they had this year, when only 7% of counties had one insurer and 29% had two (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Net changes in number of insurers compared to 2016.

Many insurers are losing money on the health plans they sell through the exchanges. Insurance giants UnitedHealth, Humana, and Aetna have cited heavy losses as the reason for withdrawing from ACA marketplaces (2). The insurers that remain are in some cases seeking sharp premium increases for next year, trying to get back in the black amid higher-than-expected costs.

The marketplaces were supposed to hold down prices and expand choice by fostering competition among insurers. A concern when the exchanges were set up was that they might eventually reach the "tipping point". This is the point where too many sick patients with high health care costs are enrolled in the exchanges. Their high costs lead to higher insurance premiums driving the young and healthy enrollees out of the exchanges. According to the insurers the young and healthy enrollees low costs are necessary to balance out claims ledgers. President Obama has called for the creation of a public insurance option to compete alongside private plans in places where competition is limited.

References

1. Cox C, Semanskee A. Preliminary data on insurer exits and entrants in 2017 affordable care act marketplaces. Kaiser Health News. August 28, 2016. Avialble at: http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/preliminary-data-on-insurer-exits-and-entrants-in-2017-affordable-care-act-marketplaces/ (accessed 8/29/16).
2. Mathews AW, Armour S. Health insurers’ pullback threatens to create monopolies. Wall Street Journal. August 28, 2016. Available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/health-insurers-pullback-threatens-to-create-monopolies-1472408338 (accessed 8/29/16).

Cite as: Robbins RA. Withdraw of insurers from ACA markets leaving many southwest patients with few or no choices. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2016;13(2):97-8. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc085-16 PDF