Covered California expresses deep concern regarding the proposed health provisions in the reconciliation bill moving through the House of Representatives.
If enacted, the legislation would have devastating consequences to the health, well-being and financial security of hundreds of thousands of Californians who would lose access to affordable health insurance. It would also lead to greater strain on the health care system and increased costs for individuals and businesses throughout the state.
Estimated Nearly $13.5 Billion Loss Annually For New Yorkers and Our Healthcare Economy
Nearly 1.5 Million New Yorkers Could Lose Essential Plan or Medicaid Coverage And Become Uninsured
Governor Hochul Demands Republican Members of Congress Oppose These Cuts and Protect Their Constituents
Governor Kathy Hochul today updated New Yorkers on the harmful effects of several healthcare provisions already passed from the House Ways & Means and Energy & Commerce committees for the Republican budget reconciliation bill. These provisions collectively amount to an annual loss of nearly $13.5 billion for New Yorkers and our healthcare sector, jeopardizing healthcare access for millions of New Yorkers while imperiling the state’s hospitals and other healthcare providers.
So, the Congressional Budget Office has published updated estimates of the budgetary impact of the House Republican budget plan (officially called the "One Big Beautiful BIll Act" (seriously); more appropriately called the #MedicaidMassacre bill by certain individuals (ahem) were to pass & be implemented.
In addition to all the dollar amounts tossed around, however, the spreadsheet also includes some important footnotes, including the following (h/t Larry Levitt of KFF for the heads up):
Under the Title IV - Energy & Commerce tab is this:
With the House Republican budget bill having made it past its second significant hurdle last night (the House Budget Committee vote), it's time tot ake a cold, hard look at just what the impact of the bill will be in pure partisan terms.
The logic Congressional Republicans (or at least Donald Trump, who pretty much has complete control over the Congressional Republican hivemind) seem to be going with is that targeting the Medicaid expansion population is good politics for them because:
UPDATED 5/22/25: Welp. House Republicans did indeed follow through with passing their horrific (and disgustingly-titled) "One Big Beautiful Bill" Act which will effectively repeal the bulk of the ACA without officially repealing it, and that's just for starters.
The final vote was 215 - 214, with every Republican except a handful voting for it (and the two who voted against it openly admitted to the NY Times that they would have voted for it if their votes had been needed), and every Democrat voting against it. There were 2 Republican "no" votes...but both of those were only because they wanted the final bill to be even more draconian.
I joined Susan J. Demas of Lincoln Square to discuss the House GOP budget bill (aka the #MAGAMassacreBill) and the Trump Regime's all-out assault on the U.S. healthcare system.
Green Mountain Care Board Receives 2026 QHP Rate Requests Amid Rising Health Care Costs
Montpelier, VT – On May 12, 2025, the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) received the 2026 individual and small group health insurance premium rate filings from BlueCross and BlueShield of Vermont and MVP Health Plan. The filings will be posted on GMCB’s rate review website. The average rate increases being requested are shown below:
Last week I wrote about the latest state of play regarding House Republicans so-called "big beautiful bill" to gut Medicaid in order to give fat tax cuts to billionaires. Yesterday the first official version of the legislative text was released, and it's pretty much as ugly as you might expect.
...The plan caters more to the moderate wing of the Republican party by omitting two of the biggest and most politically controversial proposals discussed: a per-capita cap on people who get coverage from Medicaid expansion, and a direct lowering of the federal matching rate.
Finally, there's over 1.6 million exchange enrollees who earn more than 400% FPL.
While enrollees in every other income bracket will be hit hard by IRA subsidies expiring, and many of them would be seriously damaged by Silver Loading being phased out, in terms of hard dollars, it's the middle-class enrollees being kicked back off the "Subsidy Cliff" again who will see the most jaw-dropping premium hikes.
Not only would they lose eligibility to any federal financial assistance, they'd also be hit with 6 full years of medical inflation (remember, the original ARPA/IRA subsidies have been in place (retroactively in some cases) since January 2021).
It's not gonna be pretty.
Finally, there's over 900,000 enrollees whose household income is simply unknown.
Next, let's look at the 200-400% FPL brackets. These make up almost exactly 1/4th (24.7%) of total ACA exchange enrollment this year.
These ~6 million enrollees are the ones who will be hit with a double whammy if both the IRA subsidies and Silver Loading end next year: Not only will they be hit with skyrocketing monthly premiums due to dramatically less-generous APTC subsidies, but they'll be far less likely to be able to use what subsidies they do receive to enroll in lower-deductible Gold plans (which cover ~80% of average claims) vs. Silver plans (which only cover 70-73% of average claims, depending on whether they include CSR help or not).
