State Insurance Regulators Doubtful That ‘Junk Insurance Is Better Than Nothing’ When It Comes To Short-Term Plans
The regulators were particularly concerned about aggressive and possibly misleading marketing strategies for the plans. The Trump administration announced a rule last week that extends the duration of the coverage.
The New York Times:
Trump’s Short-Term Health Insurance Policies Quickly Run Into Headwinds
The Trump administration’s efforts to allow health insurers to market short-term medical plans as a cheap alternative to the Affordable Care Act are already running into headwinds, with state insurance regulators resisting the sales and state governments moving to restrict them. State insurance regulators, gathered over the past three days for a meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, expressed deep concern that short-term plans were being aggressively marketed in ways likely to mislead consumers. Many said the plans, which need not comply with the Affordable Care Act’s coverage mandates, were a poor substitute for comprehensive insurance. (Pear, 8/6)
In other national health care news —
The Associated Press:
Could Hard-Right Supreme Court Haunt GOP? History Says Maybe
It's of little worry for Republicans or solace for Democrats bracing for battle over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Yet history suggests that if President Donald Trump cements an assertively conservative court for a generation, the GOP may ultimately pay a political price. When and how steep? That depends on how momentous the issues and how jolting the decisions, according to legal scholars who've studied the high court's impact on electoral politics. (8/7)
Politico:
Dems Zero In On Kavanaugh Ties To Judge In Sexual Harassment Scandal
Senate Democrats are gearing up to press Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on his decades-long relationship with former Judge Alex Kozinski, who was forced into retirement last year by a mounting sexual harassment scandal. It’s not just what, if anything, Kavanaugh saw during his time as a Kozinski clerk in the early 1990s that’s on Democratic minds. They also want to know how President Donald Trump’s high court pick would address the judiciary’s ongoing internal reckoning with sexual misconduct that was sparked by Kozinski — one of Kavanaugh’s early mentors who introduced the younger appellate court judge at his Senate confirmation hearing in 2006. (Schor, 8/6)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Democrats Seize On Cherry-Picked Claim That ‘Medicare-For-All’ Would Save $2 Trillion
As our colleague David Weigel reported, Democrats have latched onto the catchy idea of “Medicare-for-all” (also known as M4A) as a way of expressing their support for universal health care. On July 30, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University released a working paper on the 10-year fiscal impact of the Medicare-for-all plan sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The report was written by Charles Blahous, a former economic adviser to George W. Bush and a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare from 2010 through 2015. (Kessler, 8/7)