One of the provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a ACA, a.k.a. Health Reform, a.k.a. Obamacare) is that it limits the profits of health insurance companies. The ACA imposes a minimum medical loss ratio (MLR) on all insurers. The MLR is the amount of money spent on covered person medical care divided by the total revenue received through premiums. There is some debate of what constitutes ‘medical care’ (e.g., do investments in electronic health records count as medical care?), but insurer profits certainly are non-medical.
The ACA requires health insurers in the individual and small group market to spend 80 percent of their premiums (after subtracting taxes and regulatory fees) on medical costs. The corresponding figure for large groups is 85 percent. According to a recent Kaiser tracking poll, 60 percent of the public views the MLR concept favorably, although only 38 percent was aware that the provision is in the ACA. Insurance brokers may be getting squeezed for insurers to meet this amount.
Even though the MLR is a national law, it may not apply in your state. Why? Because many States are petitioning for a waiver. HHS is currently reviewing applications from six states: Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina. According to The National Association of State Budget Officers, HHS has granted waivers to seven states: Maine, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Nevada, Iowa, Georgia and Wisconsin. The department has denied them to Delaware and North Dakota.
Why did these States receive waivers? For a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons is due to the fact that some states have a less competitive medical market. Maine, for instance, requested a MLR of 65%. The reason was that State only has two large commercial insurers, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (with 49% of the market) and MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company (with 33% of the market). A public-private partnership, DirigoChoice, makes up most of the rest of the market. Three HMO’s have less than 1% of the market combined between them. To avoid the case where a large insurer would leave the market due to minimum MLR requirements and create a near monopoly, HHS decided to approve Maine’s request.
Notes:
- Section 2718 of the Public Health Services Act implements the minimum medical loss ratio requirement.
The National Association of State Budget Officers
Bring Market Prices to Medicare
December 16, 2011 in Books, Health Insurance, Managed Care, Medicare, Medicare Advantage | 3 comments
Medicare is a government-run insurance program. Can policy changes be made to add competition to Medicare, maintain quality and reduce cost? A book titled Bring Market Prices to Medicare argues that it can through a competitive bidding process. This book makes a number of sensible arguments which I review today.
The main proposal of the book is a competitive bidding process for all Medicare plans. Currently, there is a form of competitive bidding only for Medicare Advantage (MA) managed care plans. The authors also argues for competitive bidding for fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare (i.e., Parts A and B). There is already a competitive bidding process for Medicare’s prescription drug program (Part D) which has worked well.
One of the main advantages of Medicare FFS is that beneficiaries do not need a referral for any services and are not limited to certain provider networks. However, Medicare beneficiaries do not pay for these added benefits. In addition, even if HMOs are more efficient than Medicare FFS, Medicare FFS beneficiaries still pay the same Part B premiums.
The authors want beneficiaries to face the true price differentials between the lowest cost plans and less efficient plans., regardless if the plan is Medicare FFS or an MA plan. Thus, beneficiaries would be responsible for any premium differences due to choosing a more expensive plan.
Currently, MA plans receive a variant of the average bid in their service area. The authors propose that Medicare would only pay for the lowest cost plan. This proposal would in essence be a transfer from plans and beneficiaries (who would have to pay the cost differential between the plan they choose and the lowest cost plan) to the government. Given the fiscal hole the federal government is facing, this is a good idea.
Authors also propose to eliminate the 25% tax on premiums. According to MedPAC, “Plans that bid below the benchmark also receive payment from Medicare in the form of a “rebate.” The law defines the rebate as 75 percent of the difference between the plan’s actual bid (not standardized) and its case mix-adjusted benchmark. The plan must then return the rebate to its enrollees in the form of supplemental benefits or lower premiums” The rebate structure gives plans a disincentive from lowering their bids since they only recover a share of the cost decreases.
Another issue focuses on regional adjustments. Living in New York is expensive and health care is more expensive in New York than in rural Mississippi. However, should Medicare subsidize New Yorkers because their health care is more expensive. The authors argue no, but poor individuals in high cost areas will be adversely affected by this policy choice.
A major issue is controlling quality. Plans could create low cost plans by providing low-quality care or failing to provide mandated services. Thus, CMS will need to regulate the plans. Plans with quality levels below a specific level would be barred from enrolling individuals or the government could force beneficiaries to pay additional premiums to enroll in these low quality plans. Public reporting of plan quality is also needed.
Strategic bidding is also a problem. Plans could collude to raise the bid price. However, by having Medicare FFS as an option will cap the amount colluding firms could increase prices. Further, a small firm could bid a very low amount and set the market. Medicare could set the benchmark at the lowest cost plan which meets a minimum size requirement.
Source:
Another Review of the Book:
Tags: AEI, Auction, Books, Competitive Bidding, HMO, Managed Care, Medicare