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. @NYTimes again pushes one-sided Obamacare narrative and ignores important steps taken by the Trump Administration to keep people covered amidst the #COVID19 crisis despite big problems.
Their article includes no recognition of how the Trump Administration inherited an Obamacare market in crisis. By 2017, premiums doubled after Obamacare took effect and insurers were fleeing.
Despite the prior administration’s splashy boost in ad funding from $54 to $101 million in 2016, plan selections dropped by 4%.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration’s more efficient use of administrative funds resulted in a reduction in the exchange user fee by 0.5% this year and another 0.75% proposed for 2022, which directly contributes to lower premiums.
The reality is that the Trump Administration took immediate action to stabilize the market, including changes to protect the risk pool, improve Exchange operations to lower costs/improve consumer experience, and new pathways to enroll through private sector partners.
The @NYTimes fails to acknowledge that, as a result of these actions, premiums are down & insurer participation is up for 3 consecutive years. Instead, the writers make baseless claims that enrollment might be higher if Obamacare’s ad budget had not been reduced.
They fail to acknowledge current pathways to enroll in coverage during #COVID19 using Special Enrollment Periods & instead make unfounded claims that enrollment might be higher w/ an additional sign-up period.
In discussing #Medicaid, they also failed to even acknowledge the biggest likely driver of growing enrollment: Congress’s mandate that individuals stay on the program through the public health emergency (PHE), even if no longer eligible.
2 data points they didn’t raise: 1) enrollment in CHIP (which has no such mandate) has remained relatively flat, & 2) the # of applications received per month in #Medicaid has remained below the same months in 2019 & 2018 since May. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/national-medicaid-chip-program-information/downloads/august-medicaid-chip-enrollment-trend-snapshot.pdf
We need a strong safety-net to protect vulnerable Americans, particularly during emergencies like the current pandemic, but sustaining one will require that we rely on the whole truth.
