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In a victory for the Trump Administration, on July 18, 2019, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia upheld a 2018 regulation designed to expand the sale of short-term, limited duration insurance policies and rejected claims that the regulation unlawfully undermined the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) and would destabilize the ACA marketplaces. Plaintiffs have indicated that they will appeal the decision.

Short-term, limited duration insurance policies are not required to comply with ACA protections, including those relating to essential health benefits like maternity care and prescription drugs. Originally designed to fill very short gaps in coverage, these types of plans were not included in the definition of individual health insurance under the ACA. These short term policies can be designed with high out-of-pocket maximums, low coverage caps, and significant benefit gaps. They can also deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. For these reasons, these policies can be marketed at a lower cost. Plaintiffs representing insurers, providers, and consumer groups sued the administration arguing that the availability of short term plans would draw away younger and healthier individuals from risk pools and put insurers at an unfair disadvantage by forcing them to compete with short term plans that would not be required to comply with the same ACA protections.Continue Reading Court Upholds Short-Term, Limited Duration Insurance Policy Rule

First 100 Days LogoOn Tuesday, April 18, 2017, our Health Care Group will hold a webinar on the health care policy and transition challenges still at play as the Trump Administration nears the end of its 100 days in power.  During the webinar, participants will hear important insights and predictions on what a Trump-led Executive Branch will mean…

On December 31, 2016, in Franciscan Alliance v. Burwell, Case No. 7:16-cv-00108-O, the District Court for the Northern District of Texas  issued a nationwide injunction finding that portions of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office for Civil Right’s (OCR) Final Rule for ACA Section 1557 violated the Administrative Procedures Act and cannot be enforced. The case was brought by eight States, three private healthcare providers and the Christian Medical & Dental Society.

U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor found that OCR’s interpretation of Section 1557 to prohibit discrimination against transgender persons wrongly construed both Title IX and Section 1557. He found that these statutes only prohibit discrimination on the basis of biological sex. He also found that OCR’s Final Rule failed to properly incorporate the exceptions for religious institutions and for abortion services found in Title IX – which he said that Section 1557’s language was intended to incorporate. See 20 USC § 1681(a)(3); § 1688.Continue Reading District Court Issues Nationwide Injunction on ACA 1557 Regulations on Gender Identity and Abortion

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), in a letter to members of Congress, found that the implementation of the Transitional Reinsurance Program by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) violates the Affordable Care Act.

The Transitional Reinsurance Program is one of three premium stabilization programs authorized by the Affordable Care Act (ACA),…

Barsky

Yesterday, our colleague Troy A. Barsky testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee led by Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and provided recommendations for modernizing the Stark Law to regulate self-referrals without impeding the care coordination and value-based payment models promoted by health care reform legislation. Other witnesses before the Committee included Dr. Ronald A. Paulus…

Our Health Care Group attorneys have authored a new alert explaining the implications of the final rule on the reporting and return of overpayments (the “Overpayment Rule”) the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued earlier this month.  CMS promulgated the Overpayment Rule nearly two years after the agency issued its final rules governing…

Citing concerns about transparency and timing, on August 13, 2015, CMS issued a memorandum to clarify guidance to Medicare Part D sponsors regarding the any willing pharmacy requirement.

Medicare Part D sponsors are required to contract with any pharmacy that meets the Part D sponsor’s standard terms and conditions.  CMS requires that the standard terms…

The “what will Congress do” news leads can now stop. The Supreme Court issued its decision in King v. Burwell and Congress does not need to fix anything because, by a vote of 6-3 in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court held that the subsidy provisions of the ACA are not broken, and that individuals who purchase insurance through the Federal Exchange are eligible for ACA subsidies. In a nutshell, the Court held that the most reasonable reading of the ACA provision making credits available to individuals who purchased insurance on an exchange “established by the State” makes tax credits available to individuals who purchased insurance through the Federal Exchange. The decision delves deeply into health insurance policy concepts as well as the dark-art of statutory interpretation and the underlying chaotic legislative process to find, ultimately, that it was “implausible” that Congress intended to limit tax credits to individuals who purchased insurance through a State Exchange. See King, 576 U.S. __ (2015), slip op. at 17.

At the policy level, the Court clearly understood that the three main pieces of the ACA are “interlocking.” Id. at 1. Community rating and guaranteed issuance by insurers, and mandated purchase by individuals, are underpinned by subsidies for individuals who cannot afford what they have been told they must purchase. The Court discussed the health reform precedents in states like Massachusetts and New York at length, and even used the term “death spiral,” to make clear that it understood the carrot and stick approach embodied in the ACA. Id. at 15. Taking away the “carrot” – tax credits – that makes insurance affordable for large swathes of the population will make the scheme completely untenable in states that have not created an exchange, because too many people will fall out of the mandated purchase category by qualifying for an exemption where premiums would constitute too high a percentage of their income. This, in fact, was the premise of the lawsuit brought by challengers, who reside in Virginia, a state that has not created a State Exchange. Without access to the ACA’s tax credits, their income would be low enough that they would no longer be subject to the ACA’s mandated purchase provisions, which is what they sought.Continue Reading Context Matters: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of ACA Subsidies

On April 17th, Crowell & Moring’s Government Affairs and Health Care Groups hosted speakers from Capitol Hill, federal agencies, and national trade groups during a thought-provoking half-day Long Term Care Policy Update forum (“LTC Forum”).  The LTC Forum was spearheaded by James Flood and Scott Douglas, who recently joined the firm from the Government Affairs division at Omnicare, a leader in the long-term pharmacy industry. 

The LTC Forum focused on overall policy affecting the long-term care industry, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Congress, and other government agencies have consistently scrutinized.  Throughout the day, LTC Forum participants discussed the challenges and opportunities present in the long-term care industry that will only increase as payment reforms become the norm in Medicare. 

Of note, Sarah Johnson, the Legislative Assistant for U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) gave a timely overview of the negotiations that led up to the ultimate passage and signing of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).  MACRA repealed the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula for Medicare payments to physicians and phases in a new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System and other alternative payment models over the next ten years.  But MACRA partially funds these payment reforms with reductions to market basket updates for post-acute care providers, which creates increased concern from the industry about sustainability of long-term care providers under health reform initiatives.  According to one audience comment, there is concern that “in the long-term care industry, [stakeholders] are going to lose sight of overall health care industry shifts.”  Continue Reading Crowell’s Long-Term Care Policy Update—Recapping the Discussions and Debates

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) recently announced that it had identified and contacted more than 300,000 people to obtain proof of their citizenship or legal residency status. Failure to provide this documentation by September 5 could result in these individuals losing their Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) health coverage, effective September 30. This…