CMS: Universal Coverage Would Have 23 Million Holes

- Enrollment in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Plan programs would be about the same in both systems.

In the group health market, for example, employers probably would add 15 million employees and dependents to group plans, but “some smaller employers would be inclined to terminate their existing coverage, and companies with low average salaries might find it to their–and their employees’–advantage to end their plans, thereby allowing their workers to qualify for heavily subsidized coverage through the Exchange,” Foster writes.

The H.R. 3200 system probably would crowd about 12 million enrollees out of employer-sponsored group plans, and that means the net effect of H.R. 3200 might be just a 3 million increase in group plan enrollment, Foster writes.

Total ownership of individual health coverage is expected to be much higher, and about 13 million of the uninsured people who would get coverage would get it through the Exchange system, Foster writes.

“Another 14 million, who currently have individual health insurance policies, are also expected to switch to Exchange plans,” Foster writes.

Foster warns against putting too much faith in the forecasts.

H.R. 3200 “would result in numerous changes in the way that health care insurance is provided and paid for in the U.S., and the scope and magnitude of these changes are such that few precedents exist for use in estimation,” Foster writes. “Consequently, the estimates presented here are subject to a substantially greater degree of uncertainty than is usually the case with more routine health care proposals.