From Jesse Lee at the White House, via Twitter:
Jesse Lee @jesseclee44
Report: 54M more Americans got preventive care in 2011 b/c of #hcr 1.usa.gov/z0stUq GOP’s Blunt amendment would nix that guarantee 12:04 PM – 15 Feb 12
From the Department of Health and Human Services:
Fifty-Four Million Additional Americans Are Receiving Preventive Services Coverage Without Cost-Sharing Under The Affordable Care Act (February 2012)
And there’s this:
Posted at 11:09 AM ET, 02/15/2012
Why birth control is a good wedge issue against the GOP
By Greg SargentSome time around the end of February, the Senate will vote on the Blunt-Rubio amendment, which would allow insurers and employers to deny coverage for birth control or any other medical services simply on the grounds that they find them morally objectionable….
[emphasis added]
Senator Roy Blunt (r) wants to completely dismantle health care reform with this amendment.
And there’s this:
Mapping the Effects of the ACA’s Health Insurance Coverage Expansions
Who Benefits From the Affordable Care Act’s Coverage Expansions?
[The detail of Missouri from the map above. Roy Blunt’s old House district could lose a lot of coverage.]
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes two primary mechanisms for helping people afford health coverage. Starting in 2014, people with family incomes up to 138% of the poverty level ($31,809 for a family of four and $15,415 for a single person in 2012) will generally be eligible for the Medicaid program. And, people buying coverage on their own in new state-based health insurance exchanges will be eligible for federal tax credits to subsidize the cost of insurance. Tax credits will be calculated on a sliding scale basis for people with family income up to four times the poverty level ($92,200 for a family of four and $44,680 for a single person in 2012). (A calculator from the Kaiser Family Foundation illustrates the assistance people would be eligible for at different income levels and ages.)
The share of the population who will benefit from new Medicaid eligibility and the new health insurance tax credit will vary substantially throughout the country. We’ve illustrated that variation by estimating the share of the population in over 2,000 geographic areas across the U.S. who had family income up to four times the poverty level in 2010 and were either uninsured or buying coverage on their own.
On average, an estimated 17% of the non-elderly population nationwide would benefit from the Medicaid expansion and tax credits. In parts of Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and California, 36-40% of population could benefit. In areas of Massachusetts, Hawaii, New York, and Connecticut – states that generally have high levels of employer-provided health insurance or have already implemented reforms to make insurance more accessible and affordable – 2-4% of the non-elderly could benefit from the coverage expansions in the ACA….
And, a press release from the Department of Health and Human Services:
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
News Division
HHS Press Office[….]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 15, 2012Affordable Care Act extended free preventive services to 1,102,000 Missouri residents with private health insurance in 2011
Free preventive care also provided to 729,472 Missouri residents in Medicare
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today that the Affordable Care Act provided approximately 1,102,000 Missouri residents with at least one new free preventive service in 2011 through their private health insurance plans. Secretary Sebelius also announced that an estimated 729,472 Missouri residents with Medicare received at least one free preventive benefit in 2011, including the new Annual Wellness Visit, since the health reform law was enacted.
Together, this means an estimated 1,831,472 Missouri residents were helped by health reform’s prevention coverage improvements. The new data were released in two new reports from HHS.
“Americans of all ages can now get the preventive services they need, like mammograms and the new Annual Wellness Visit, free of charge, as a result of the new health care law,” Secretary Sebelius said. “With more people taking advantage of these benefits, more lives can be saved, and costly, and often burdensome, diseases can be prevented or caught earlier.”
Nationwide, the Affordable Care Act provided approximately 54 million Americans with at least one new free preventive service in 2011 through their private health insurance plans. And an estimated 32.5 million people with Medicare received at least one free preventive benefit in 2011, including the new Annual Wellness Visit, since the health reform law was enacted. Together, this means an estimated 86 million Americans were helped by health reform’s prevention coverage improvements.
The Affordable Care Act requires many insurance plans to provide coverage without cost sharing to enrollees for a variety of preventive health services, such as colonoscopy screening for colon cancer, Pap smears and mammograms for women, well-child visits, and flu shots for all children and adults. The law also makes proven preventive services free for most people on Medicare.
The report on private health insurance coverage also examined the expansion of free preventive services in minority populations. The results showed that an estimated 6.1 million Latinos, 5.5 million Blacks, 2.7 million Asian Americans and 300,000 Native Americans across the country with private insurance received expanded preventive benefits coverage in 2011 as a result of the new health care law.
The report discussing Medicare preventive services found that more than 25.7 million Americans (582,585 Missouri residents) in traditional Medicare received free preventive services in 2011. The report also looked at Medicare Advantage plans and found that 9.3 million Americans (200,712 Missouri residents) – 97 percent of those in individual Medicare Advantage plans – were enrolled in a plan that offered free preventive services. Assuming that people in Medicare Advantage plans utilized preventive services at the same rate as those with traditional Medicare, an estimated 32.5 million Americans (729,472 Missouri residents) benefited from Medicare’s coverage of prevention with no cost sharing.
The full report on expanded preventive benefits in private health insurance is available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/rep… The report on expanded preventive benefits in Medicare and other ways that the Affordable Care Act strengthens Medicare is available at http://www.cms.gov/newsroom/.
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Anyone think any of those folks who are registered voters would be partial to voting for Roy Blunt in the future if they knew what he was up to? Not hardly.
Previously: Roy Blunt tries to pull a fast
one (February 10, 2012)