REMAINING THREATS TO THE ACA
Note: the NDNRC Update will be taking a summer break through Labor Day weekend. You can check our website for regular news updates and we will resume the updates on Friday, September 8. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
With the Senate’s failure to pass a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), attention has been turned to other ways the ACA could be weakened by the Trump Administration. One of the things that the Administration could do which could potentially destabilize the marketplace would be to withhold the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments which are made to the insurance companies to help offset out-of-pocket costs for lower income enrollees. This past spring, the Kaiser Family Foundation released two issue briefs which went into detail about the effects of the CSR payments. To learn more about these issue briefs, check out our news item.
Health Affairs also has a blog post on the CSR payments this week as well as an ACA Round-Up blog post which looks at some of the bi-partisan ideas to fix the ACA which were proposed this week.
A new blog post by the Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms addresses the issue of the CSR payments as well as other ways that the Trump Administration could weaken the ACA. The blog post entitled “No Rest for the Weary: Unexpected Defeat of ACA Repeal Effort Doesn’t Mean End of Threats to Law” looks at four other ways that the Administration could weaken the ACA marketplace.
We will continue to monitor the status of health care reform in Congress and report on any renewed efforts to repeal, replace or repair the ACA. In the meantime, you can view the NDNRC statement on health reform which we released after the election last November which includes the provisions of the ACA which we believe are vital to people with disabilities. 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.
With the start of a new school year around the corner, the CMS program Insure Kids Now has a number of resources aimed at back-to-school outreach and enrollment. These resources include a School-Based Outreach and Enrollment Toolkit and a tip sheet on 10 Things Schools Can Do. Many of these resources are also available in Spanish or other languages.
The CDC funded New Hampshire Disability and Public Health Project created two data briefs concerning the health and wellness of people with intellectual and/or mobility disabilities. The first relates to Health Communication Needs, and the second discusses Diabetes Prevention.
The University of Washington Healthy Aging Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) has released a fact sheet entitled “Tips for Improving Memory & Thinking.”
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. You can find a COC, on the COC page of our website.
Archives of our weekly updates are available on the NDNRC website.
