Affordable Care Act (ACA)
How the 2017 Tax Reform Act May Impact Healthcare Costs and Spending
Source Fellow January 11, 2018
By: Katie Beyer, Student Fellow The 2017 Tax Reform Act, formerly known as H.R.1 the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, was signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017. This politically charged bill first passed the Senate by a strict party line vote of 51-48 and passed the House by a final vote of 224-201. No Democrats voted for the bill in either the Senate or the House. Republicans were eager to pass the bill, claiming that families would see an average of $2,200 cut from their annual taxes.[1] …
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Academic Articles & Reports Roundup: November 2017
Source Fellow December 2, 2017
By: Katie Beyer, Student Fellow Happy December! In this Roundup, we cover four articles from November. The topics this month include: (1) new methods to measure healthcare costs and (2) economic impacts of ACA repeal efforts. Better Understanding Healthcare Costs Through the Use of New Methodologies Two articles in November propose two new methods of measuring healthcare spending rates. In Measuring the Burden of Health Care Costs on US Families: The Affordability Index (Journal of American Medical Association), authors Ezekiel Emanuel, Aaron Glickman, and David Johnson offer a new index measure …
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The End of CSRs: Trump Eliminates “Bailouts” While Others Seek a Solution
Source Fellow October 30, 2017
By: Briana Moller, Student Fellow Trump Administration Has Eliminated CSR Payments On October 11, 2017, in a memo to the Department of Treasury and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Attorney General Jeff Sessions provided his legal opinion that Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments were unlawful. CSR payments reimburse insurance companies for losses in deductibles, copays, and coinsurance payments owed by lower income individuals in health plans on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges. The following day, Eric Hagan, the acting Secretary of HHS, announced that CSR payments …
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Academic Articles and Reports Roundup: January 2017
Anna Zaret, Managing Editor February 4, 2017
As we moved into the first month of 2017, we continued to see articles addressing concerns about healthcare costs and the role of the market in healthcare. This month’s Roundup covers 1) state oversight of vertical integration in healthcare|2) the influence of provider and insurer market share on price negotiations|3) frameworks for analyzing product-hopping antitrust claims|and 4) former President Obama’s comments on “repeal and delay” of the ACA. Source Executive Editor Jaime S. King and Erin Fuse Brown published The Double-Edged Sword of Health Care Integration: Consolidation and Cost Control (Indiana …
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Looking Ahead: The Future of the Affordable Care Act Under a Trump Presidency
Anna Zaret, Managing Editor November 17, 2016
Now that Donald Trump has won the White House, and Republicans have gained control in both the House and Senate, we will see modifications to the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) in the future, although it is not entirely clear what those modifications will entail. Some consensus exists, however, on at least three issues related to the future of the ACA. First, change on-the-ground is not going to be felt immediately, even if bills modifying the ACA are signed in to law quickly. This means, importantly, that nothing is going to …
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Academic Articles & Reports: August 2016
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor September 1, 2016
This last round up of the summer features articles on a range of topics including (1) competition in healthcare markets|(2) strategies for reducing healthcare costs|(3) pharmaceutical pricing|(4) ACOs|(5) other ACA aspects and effects|(6) post-Gobeille strategies|and (7) antitrust enforcement. We hope everyone is settling into school and work after some time off. Happy (almost) fall! Competition in health care markets: In Choice and Competition in Public Service Provision, by Timothy J. Besley and James M. Malcomson, published by the Center for Economic Policy Research, looks broadly at markets involving services like …
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Academic Articles & Reports Roundup: July 2016
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor August 1, 2016
This month, we saw articles and reports that approached the health care cost conundrum from all angles: price transparency|how the ACA fits in|lowering costs, generally|healthcare markets and market places|and the consumer side of things. Add these to your summer reading list! Price Transparency We at The Source were delighted to have provided research on state legislation for HCI3 and Catalyst for Payment Reform’s Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws — July 2016. This was the fourth edition of the Report Card, first issued in 2013. The Report Card carefully …
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Academic Articles & Reports Round Up: April 2016
Elizabeth Nicholson, Research Fellow May 2, 2016
Happy May! April produced a number of articles and reports on interesting aspects of healthcare issues. As always, healthcare cost was at the forefront of the scene. Also discussed were pharmaceutical cost, the intersection of quality and cost, cost-sharing, the likelihood of a single-payer healthcare system in the United States, the effects of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and the ins and outs of the new Medicare payment system. HEALTHCARE COST Health Affairs published an article entitled Study of Physician And Patient Communication Identifies Missed Opportunities To Help Reduce Patients’ Out-Of-Pocket …
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FTC Closed Out 2015 Focusing on Provider Mergers with Mighty Market Shares
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor January 11, 2016
The FTC closed out 2015 with a number of actions aimed at anticompetitive provider combinations. Hospital mergers were the primary focus, with three hospital merger challenges filed in the last two months of 2015, but they were not the only providers subject to challenge, as the FTC also settled over an allegedly anticompetitive merger with two specialty physicians practices in late December. The challenged hospital mergers involved providers in the Huntington, West Virginia, Chicago, Illinois, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania areas. Pennsylvania was also where the FTC challenged the merger of orthopedics practices. …
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Academic Articles & Reports Roundup: December 2015
Elizabeth Nicholson, Research Fellow January 4, 2016
Happy New Year! As 2015 wrapped up, many interesting and comprehensive healthcare studies, on a variety of topics, yielded results that will likely propel healthcare research, policy, and legislation in the new year. At the heart of these studies were the ACA, healthcare cost and value, cost transparency, and hospital competition. Enjoy! ACA Positive ACA Effects Health Affairs published Affordable Care Act Provision Lowered Out-Of-Pocket Cost And Increased Colonoscopy Rates Among Men In Medicare. The authors, two economists, analyzed colonoscopy rates pre- and post-ACA. The authors found that, post-ACA, annual …
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