“Time for a New Coach?”
Welcome to the fifth edition of TPG’s Healthcare Review, a forum to keep our current clients, prospective clients, and candidates apprised of the ever-changing landscape of healthcare in a post-reform world. Tracking the iterations, implementations, extensions and exemptions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) can be a full time job. Each new day seems to bring a wave of information which needs to be fully digested before the next news cycle starts. Again, it is our intent to update this newsletter monthly through the end of 2014 to keep you well-informed of the latest developments and their implications. We thank you in advance for your interest, and welcome your comments and questions throughout the year.
Enrollment Period Closes
This month’s focus will be on the close of the open enrollment period on March 31, 2014, the rumors surrounding the Employer Mandate, and the sudden resignation of Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). We’ll start with the remarks from President Obama in the White House Rose Garden on April 1st. With the open enrollment period closed just 12 hours earlier, the President announced that 7.1 million Americans had signed up for health insurance through the healthcare exchanges. This number was later revised to 7.5 million. He further stated that many more individuals wanted to sign up and were “stuck in line” because of the huge surge in demand in the closing days of the enrollment period. These individuals will be allowed to complete their enrollments beyond the prescribed deadline. The number of reported enrollees exceeded the 7 million number projected by the administration prior to the website launch on October 1, 2013.
The President also heralded PPACA’s mandate for family plans to extend coverage to young adults up to age 26. The administration estimates that more than 3 million young adults have gained insurance due to this change in requirements under the law. As for the total number of new enrollments, the HHS website has not released any official numbers since early March, and those were incomplete at the time. As the individuals who were stuck in line have the opportunity to complete their enrollments, final numbers should be forthcoming prior to our next monthly publication. Please stay tuned . . .
In other news, following the second postponement of the Employer Mandate for some (and the delay of full compliance for others), a voice from the past stepped forward and began to circulate the idea of a permanent postponement. On April 2nd, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs predicted the elimination of the Employer Mandate. Robert Gibbs was Press Secretary during the contentious days when Congress was fighting over the passage of PPACA into law and the legal battles that followed. He is quoted as saying “I don’t think the employer mandate will go into effect. It’s a small part of the law. I think it will be one of the first things to go.” The former Obama adviser still endorses the controversial healthcare law, but went on to say “we need to have an honest discussion about improving and tweaking the law.”
The Employer Mandate has been vilified as a “Jobs Killer” and many have argued that it is an egregious power grab by a government too willing to overstep the boundaries of free market economics. For all of the debate over the Employer Mandate, the White House contends that only a small fraction of people would be affected as most larger companies already offer insurance coverage to their workers. Again, we will need to take a wait and see approach on this potential issue as well.
TPG’s Approach
The Performance Group has developed a workable solution to address healthcare costs upon the implementation of the Employer Mandate. In our approach, insurance costs will be isolated by each individual that is designated as “benefit eligible.” Clients will be able to budget the cost of their contingent workforce through their partnership with The Performance Group. TPG is currently working on the necessary compliance reporting, a significant part of the law, once the final rules are released.
Sebelius Out, Burwell In!
The final discussion point for this month is the surprising resignation of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. This hand selected adviser to the Obama administration and the former Governor of the State of Kansas was one of the first Department Secretaries to be confirmed by the Senate in early 2009. She was a champion of PPACA through its difficult battle for approval and was given the daunting task of implementing its complexities over the three years leading up to the start-up of the exchanges in October of last year. It was at that time that her fortunes changed for the worse.
The initial two months of the roll out of the healthcare exchanges were a disaster for the supporters of the law. With continued division in public opinion over the law, many Americans questioned why the website wasn’t ready for the October 1st launch date; after all it had been three years in the making with a cost of roughly one billion dollars. Secretary Sebelius became the public face of a frustrated administration and many government officials called for her ouster. She persevered through that difficult period and oversaw the necessary improvements in the Healthcare.gov website and the reported surge of enrollments in 2014. The Rose Garden statements of President Obama were presented as a victory lap for the administration and his signature legislation from his first term. This should also have been the vindication of Secretary Sebelius for those who wanted her to resign back in October, but instead it was announced on the evening of April 10th that she would resign.
Although it is unclear why she has decided to step out of her role at this time, we do know that a new “Coach” at HHS is necessary to oversee the next phases of PPACA and its impact on the United States healthcare system. President Obama has chosen Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the current Director of the Office of Management and Budget to replace Secretary Sebelius. As we approach the mid-term elections this November, PPACA continues to remain firmly entrenched in the spotlight.
How TPG Can Help Your Business
At The Performance Group, we will do our best to keep you informed of the continual changes in PPACA which could impact your business/employment. To hear how The Performance Group can help to make your business life as pain free as possible, please click here to contact us. Thank you, again, for your interest.
Thomas E. Readdy
President
The Performance Group