Coalition warns of ‘historic health coverage losses’ up to 43 million in U.S.

If Congress fails to act, the number of uninsured Americans will increase 50% over the next 10 years, to 43 million, and many of the newly uninsured Americans will be people trapped by red tape.

A coalition of nonprofit groups included that forecast in a new health insurance policy paper released today.

See also: Even insured Americans are struggling to afford healthcare, study finds

Congressional leaders are trying to create a “Reconciliation 3.0” spending package. The package could help a large number of unrelated bills, including health savings account bills and health care cost transparency bills, move through the House and Senate relatively easily.

The nonprofit coalition wants Washington policymakers to take steps to ease the impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and changes in Affordable Care Act health insurance premium subsidy rules on low-income people, to avoid what the coalition is calling “historic coverage losses.”

The coalition includes the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, the National Urban League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, UnidosUS, the Coalition on Human Needs, Community Catalyst and Families USA.

Affordability programs could change how some pay for healthcare

What it means: The new push for supporting insurance affordability programs could have a big effect on how some employees pay their healthcare bills, because Medicaid and similar programs cover 5% of all U.S. workers and 11% of workers at employers with fewer than 50 employees, according to Commonwealth Fund survey data.

Coalition recommendations: The coalition says government agencies can reduce the impact of health insurance program cuts by streamlining enrollment processes for the people who are still eligible for assistance.

When Medicaid eliminated temporary eligibility support rules created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 10 states made sure that 65% of the enrollees experienced “paperless, data-based renewal,” the coalition says.

In 10 other states, health agencies insisted on seeing paper applications, and the agencies renewed coverage for only 22% of the enrollees based on data matches, the coalition says.

The list of coalition recommendations for maximizing public health insurance program enrollment now includes:

• Using existing tax filing databases and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program database to provide automatic enrollment for families that are eligible for Medicaid or other public health insurance programs.
• Creating a single eligibility system in each state for all public health insurance programs, to eliminate the need for families to go to multiple agencies to apply for health insurance.
• Paying for independent navigators to help families cope with health insurance program red tape.
• Providing access to ACA health insurance premium subsidies for adults with annual income under 100% of the federal poverty level in the 10 states that have not opened their Medicaid programs to low-income, able-bodied adults.

This article was originally published on BenefitsPRO, a sister site of HR Executive. For more content like this delivered to your inbox, sign up for BenefitsPRO newsletters here.

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