The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee plans to hold bipartisan hearings on healthcare reform beginning September 6, and while ideas such as funding for cost-sharing reduction subsidies are broadly acknowledged as essential next steps, other ways to stabilize individual insurance markets have received less press, according to Kaiser Health News.
Listed below are five ideas for shoring up ACA exchanges that have flown under the radar.
1. Lower the age of Medicare eligibility to 55. This would decrease the average age on individual exchanges and turn lower premiums for everyone else.
2. Allow people to buy into Medicaid, as Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, recently proposed. In his proposal, Medicaid would raise reimbursement rates to encourage more physicians to take on Medicaid patients.
3. Take younger people off their parents' insurance and balance risk pools by having healthier individuals purchasing coverage.
4. Require insurers who participate in government programs to offer exchange plans to increase competition on state marketplaces.
5. Allow people to use health savings account contributions to pay for premiums as a way for individuals to receive tax relief for insurance payments.
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