Kaiser Health News quoted Manatt’s Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, a managing director with Manatt Health, for an article on how attempts to fix the “coverage gap” could be an illusion.
Kaiser Health News reports that Senate Republicans are purporting to fix one of the ACA’s loopholes by offering federal tax credits to help pay for insurance premiums for anyone earning between zero and 350 percent of the poverty level, starting in 2020. But health law experts caution that this coverage gap fix for these very low earners would likely be largely undercut by two other changes in the bill.
One factor that experts noted is the Senate plan would phase out the Medicaid expansion. Theoretically, people affected by the end of that program could get federal subsidies to buy coverage under the Senate plan. But, the benefits would likely not be as good.
That’s because Medicaid typically provides services such as transportation to medical appointments and home healthcare, said Brooks-LaSure.
Read the article here.