On February 14, the White House published a fact sheet touting their record on reducing medical debt. In particular, they were pleased to note that a newly published Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) report “shows that the number of Americans with medical debt on their credit reports fell by 8.2 million from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2022.”
There are a number of reasons for this, including American Recovery Act money the administration has used to finance state and local programs to buy up and forgive medical debt. They’ve also changed how the government underwrites mortgages and small business loans so that medical debt is not considered, which is another way to lessen the impact of being saddled with unexpected health-related bills. It looks like the private credit rating industry may follow suit.
On the whole, though, medical debt is down because a record-low number of people are currently uninsured. And this was true even before over 16 million people signed up for Obamacare in the latest enrollment period.
One driver of this decline in medical debt is the expansion of health insurance coverage during the Biden-Harris Administration. In the first quarter of 2022, the uninsured rate hit an all-time low of 8.0%, with 4.2 million people gaining coverage between 2020 and the first half of 2022. This milestone does not yet not capture the impact of the most recent increase in Marketplace enrollment, with a record 16.3 million Americans signing up on HealthCare.gov and the state-based Marketplaces during the 2023 Open Enrollment Period. This includes 3.6 million people who are new to the Marketplaces for 2023. Since President Biden took office, the number of people who have signed up for an affordable health care plan through HealthCare.gov has increased by nearly 50%.
One reason enrollment is up is that this administration, unlike the previous one, has made aggressive use of the Navigator system, making sure to increase outreach to hard-to-reach populations.
Liberal health care advocacy group Protect our Care cited the administration’s investment into the ACA’s Navigators program as another reason for the increasing enrollment numbers. Navigators are essentially ACA enrollment advisers who are tasked with raising awareness of Marketplace plans and assist consumers in preparing their applications.
“The nation’s uninsured rate is at the lowest it has ever been in history,” Protect our Care said in a statement. “We’re finally starting to reach the true potential of the Affordable Care Act, and you see that reflected in the enrollment numbers…
A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) echoed these sentiments, saying the level of outreach had risen to an “unprecedented scope and scale” this past year.
“Enrollment outreach included investments to reach multiple audiences that experience lower access to health care. CMS has partnered with cultural marketing experts, for example, to deliver strong campaigns to African Americans, Spanish and English-speaking Latinos, and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in multiple languages,” the spokesperson said.
CMS invested nearly $100 million in grant funding to 59 Navigator organizations for this year’s enrollment period, another record amount according to the agency’s spokesperson.
You aren’t hearing the Republicans talk about scrapping Obamacare anymore. But now that they’re in charge of the House, they want to cause problems for the program.
The gains suggest the program known as Obamacare is going strong, despite repeated efforts by Republicans to kill it.
It also suggests subsidies provided to the program through two massive pieces of legislation spearheaded by President Biden had an influence. The subsidies were established by the American Rescue Plan in 2021 and subsequently extended through the Inflation Reduction Act.
“It really speaks to the improved affordability of ACA Marketplace plans. The expanded subsidies made ACA Marketplace plans a whole lot more affordable and attractive for people,” Krutika Amin, associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), told The Hill.
The potential problem down the road for the Affordable Care Act is that these critical subsidies are set to expire in 2025 and would have to be renewed by Congress in order to continue.
Both the White House and Democrats in Congress have called for the subsidies to be made permanent, but Republicans are likely to oppose those efforts.
To be clear, the Republicans know reducing the subsidies will not be popular even to their own voters. But they just don’t have the will power to finance Obamacare at heightened levels. They would need Democratic votes, and they’re not going to produce an overall spending bill that Democrats will support.
This is another reason why we’re headed to a government shutdown. Still, the Biden administration’s record on health care is stellar and they’re correct to seek attention and approval for their efforts.
