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State: Calif. Young: More on Ryancare and Workers' Comp: [2017-03-23] |
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My last post looked at some of the ways the current House proposal for Obamacare repeal/replace (dubbed Ryancare) might affect workers’ comp. A day in politics can be an eternity. But the vote in the House today looks to be very close. As of Wednesday morning, Politico had an article indicating that current vote count looks as though Ryancare will fail in the House. Even if it passes this week, the package may be DOA in the Senate next week. Still, the potential ramifications of the AHCA are so vast that it merits great scrutiny. As noted in my recent piece, loss of health care coverage for workers may have real implications for both frequency and severity in workers’ comp claims. And if workers are nervous about the availability of health care coverage or its pricing, it may be harder for insurers to settle cases with those workers, i.e. harder to close files. Another unknown is possible implications for new “sharing/gig economy” employers, most of whom do not offer health coverage to what the companies contend are independent contractors. It is not clear whether there will be impacts on the gig economy business model if coverage through Covered California or Medi-Cal is unavailable or too pricey. What is clear is the significant impact that Ryancare will have on Medi-Cal and Covered California. In that vein, I’d like to point readers to two interesting studies just released by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. One, written by Laurel Lucia, Miranda Dietz and Ken Jacobs, is titled “Which California Industries Would Be Most Affected by ACA Repeal and Cuts to Medi-Cal?” They note that under Obamacare some 3.7 million Californians are enrolled in the ACA expansion, and another 1.2 million receive federal subsidies that help make Covered California more affordable. Many of these are people in working families. They document that many industry sectors have a high rate of Medi-Cal participation or premium support for Covered California enrollment. These are some of the sectors where employers often don’t offer group employer-paid coverage:
The UC Labor Center study includes charts showing the numbers of Medi-Cal and Covered California enrollees by industry. Tuesday, the UC Berkeley Labor Center released another study, titled “Medi-Cal Expansion under AHCA: Severe Coverage and Funding Loss Unless State Backfills Billions in Federal Cuts.” Here is the heart of the conclusions of the study written by Laurel Lucia, Ken Jacobs and Andrew Bindman:
The study includes an appendix that breaks down the numbers by county and also by Congressional and California legislative districts. Julius Young is a claimants' attorney for the Boxer & Gerson law firm in Oakland. This column was reprinted with his permission from his blog, www.workerscompzone.com. |