Many see health law coverage as affordable, survey finds

Sep 18 2014

That's most true among low-income consumers who receive subsidies to help pay their premiums, according to the Commonwealth Fund survey. 

Marketplace: How Affordable Is The Affordable Care Act?
A survey out on Thursday suggests many Americans who signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) find their coverage affordable. That's particularly true for people with low incomes who are paying less than $125 a month in premiums, similar to people that get coverage at work. To be sure, there were good deals for consumers in the first year of the ACA (Gorenstein, 9/18).

Politico Pro: Commonwealth Fund Survey: ACA Plans Seen As Affordable
Seventy percent of the people getting health coverage through the ACA insurance exchanges believe they could now afford care if they get sick, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey released Thursday. Generally, the people in the exchanges find premiums affordable, although that's particularly true of lower-income people who are more heavily subsidized (Norman, 9/18).

In other news about the health law and its implementation -

Bloomberg: U.S. Health System Among Least Efficient Before Obamacare
The U.S. health-care system was among the least efficient in the developed world two years before major changes from Obamacare began to go into effect. America's health-care system ranked 44th of 51 nations assessed by Bloomberg, in terms of per person spending, life expectancy and health-care cost as a percentage of the economy. It's an improvement from 46th of 48 last year, yet Serbia, Turkey and China still scored better. Singapore, with the top ranking, spent $2,426 per person and had a life expectancy of 82.1 years in 2012, the most recent year for which data are available. In comparison, the U.S. shoveled cash into health care -- $8,895 per person, per year -- and Americans are expected to live for 78.7 years (Edney, 9/18).

The Fiscal Times: Obamacare Has a Long Way to Go, ACA Experts Say
When it comes to the president's health care law, there's very little that Republicans and Democrats agree on-;but one idea that seems to unite analysts, experts and lawmakers across the political spectrum is that Obamacare has done very little to actually improve health care. "The U.S. healthcare system was always dysfunctional. The Affordable Care Act has just provided more access to that dysfunctional system," iVantage chief Donald Bialek said during an ACA debate at The Economist's health care forum in Boston on Wednesday. Bialek, for his part, was on the side defending the health care law (Ehley, 9/17).

Also, in regard to challenges to the health law's contraception mandate --

Politico Pro: Religious Groups' Contraceptive Cases Nearing High Court
Lawsuits challenging whether religious schools and other nonprofits have to abide by Obamacare's contraceptive coverage requirement are moving toward an expected Supreme Court showdown. Last month, in an effort to end the legal battles, the Obama administration released new rules on how religious nonprofits have to abide by the requirement. But organizations have told one court that even the updated rules are untenable (Haberkorn, 9/17).