Today, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) turns 3! We’re celebrating three years of benefits, new consumer protections, and the imminent possibility of new insurance coverage opportunities.
Most of you have had a 3-year-old, know a 3-year-old, or could easily imagine the chaos of a 3-year-old’s birthday party. Our friends at Raising Women’s Voices drew this birthday party parallel of where we’re at with implementation of the ACA, and I love the analogy. So I’m going to use it to remind you about the ACA in Wisconsin, and why three years of the law’s development and implementation puts us in a surprisingly similar situation to a 3-year-old’s birthday party.
Most of the party attendees are pleased with the progress of our 3-year-old: They like the fact that their young adult children can stay on their insurance until they’re 26, that kids with preexisting conditions cannot be discriminated against, and that 80% of their premium dollars have to be spent on their care (see our top ten ways Wisconsin families are already benefiting from the ACA).
Then there are those having a bit of a temper tantrum at the party (face it – there’s always a kid in the corner crying at a three year old’s party). They didn’t get what they wanted – the law is still the law – and they don’t really want to embrace it. Many politicians, like our own Governor Walker, have resisted implementing the law. We’re having a federally run health insurance marketplace in Wisconsin because of that, and Governor Walker proposednot taking advantage of the law’s funding for Medicaid (to fill the gap in BadgerCare).
Often in temper tantrums, there can be a strange and strained process of appeasing the disruptive child, which bears some resemblance to the Governor’s efforts to appease his conservative base. He is simultaneously (1) rejecting the ACA’s enhanced Medicaid funding for BadgerCare; and (2) embracing the federal marketplaces to provide coverage to parents he proposes making ineligible for BadgerCare, which is being done to pay for covering some adults without dependent children. (Our blog describes this risky strategy a bit more.) The problem is that these low-income adults were supposed to be in BadgerCare; the cost-sharing in the new marketplaces in the ACA were not intended for them. That’s why the legislature needs to tweak this proposal by the Governor, and be the adult in the room who enables state residents to get the right source of coverage, and not leave federal funding on the table.
This party is in full swing right now. So, as we are celebrating the anniversary of the ACA, we know that it still has some major growing up to do. We’ll continue to be there on the journey, helping the law to develop and be implemented in the way it was intended. Wisconsinites have a lot at stake in this law, and though the three year party seems a bit chaotic (and it is), it’s worth moving forward.
Sara Eskrich
