SENATE TO VOTE ON ACA REPEAL NEXT WEEK
As of the writing of this newsletter, the Senate is preparing to vote on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) next week. At this time, it is unknown whether it will be an ACA replacement bill, such as the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (BCRA) or a new bill, the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act of 2017 (ORRA), which would repeal the ACA, but delay the effect of the repeal until 2020 in order to craft a replacement plan later. The Congressional Budget Office has scored both of these approaches, estimating that the ORRA would result in 32 million people losing coverage while the BCRA would result in 22 million people losing coverage.
For more analysis on these bills, check out Tim Jost’s blog posts this week on Health Affairs:
- ORRA: “The Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act: What Repeal and Delay Would Mean for Coverage, Premiums, and the Budget”
- BCRA: “The Latest CBO Score Of The Better Care Reconciliation Act Leaves 22 Million Uninsured By 2026”
Previously, we posted an analysis of the BCRA on our blog. The post is entitled “What the Senate’s BCRA Would Mean for People with Disabilities.” We have also blogged about how the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) would affect people with disabilities (once in March when the AHCA was originally introduced and once in May on the final version of the AHCA passed by the House).
AAHD opposes both the AHCA and the BCRA as well as the “repeal & delay” which would occur under the ORRA. If you’re interested in our advocacy efforts around the ACA repeal, then check out our Action Alert from earlier this month. You can also view our NDNRC statement on health reform which we released after the elections last November. In the statement entitled “Preserve the Protections Provided by the Affordable Care Act,” we call on Congress and the Administration to protect provisions in the ACA which have benefited people with disabilities. The full statement can be found on our website, where it is also available in a PDF download, by clicking here.
Are you looking for a resource to help identify all the differences between the ACA and the various replacement proposals? The Kaiser Family Foundation has an interactive page which allows you to compare the ACA to the AHCA, the BCRA and the ORRA.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a new issue brief on the effect that the BCRA would have on state-by-state Medicaid funding. To read more about the issue brief, check out our news item.
Enroll America has recently ceased operations. As an organization, they had many helpful resources related to outreach and enrollment. However, these resources are not gone as many of them have now been archived on the Families USA website.
PARTICIPANTS NEEDED: Health Insurance Interviews: The NIDILRR-funded Collaborative on Health Reform and Independent Living (CHRIL) is recruiting adults with disabilities to participate in interviews about their experiences with getting and using health insurance. All adults ages 18 to 63 with any type of disability are encouraged to participate. Participants are particularly needed from racial/ethnic minorities, rural areas and from the following states: Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. In addition, participants over age 50 and those with sensory disabilities are also particularly needed. Qualified individuals chosen for the study will participate in a 30-40 minute phone interview about their health insurance experiences. Participants who complete the interview will receive a $40 gift card. To get more information and/or to express your interest in participating please go to the CHRIL website, call toll-free 1-855-556-6328, or email healthsurvey@ku.edu.
The University of Washington Healthy Aging Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) has released a fact sheet entitled “How to Find Trustworthy Health Information from the Internet.” To download a copy of this fact sheet, click here.
The NASUAD Business Acumen Center will be hosting a webinar on Wednesday, July 26 from 12:30-1:30 PM ET entitled “Are they buying what you’re selling? An inside look at what Health Plans need from Community Based Organizations”. Check out the full announcement to learn more or click here to register.
Do you have a program which you are trying to recruit people with disabilities for? AAHD presented on a webinar this week for the National Council on Aging (NCOA) entitled “Building Inclusive Programs to Serve Adults with Disabilities.” The slides from this presentation as well as a video recording are now available.
Are you looking for local partners to help with outreach to the disability community? The NDNRC has Community Outreach Collaboratives (COCs) which work to increase collaborations in the community, dissemination and outreach efforts and enrollment of people with disabilities in the ACA marketplace. To find a COC, click here.
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