• Lawmakers to Give Bipartisanship a Try on Obamacare The Hill by Jessie Hellmann — The Senate will take a new approach to Obamacare next week — bipartisanship. Following the stunning defeat of the GOP’s repeal bill, the Senate Health Committee will turn to passing bipartisan legislation aimed at shoring up insurance markets for 2018. The odds are against bipartisanship — particularly when it comes to Obamacare.
  
  
• Trump Administration Wants to Stabilize Health Markets but Won’t Say How The New York Times by Robert Pear — A Trump administration official said Wednesday that the administration wanted to stabilize health insurance markets, but refused to say if the government would promote enrollment this fall under the Affordable Care Act or pay for the activities of counselors who help people sign up for coverage. The official also declined to say whether the administration would continue paying subsidies to insurance companies to compensate them for reducing deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for low-income people. Without the subsidies, insurers say, they would sharply increase premiums. The administration, the official suggested, will do the minimum necessary to comply with the law, which Mr. Trump has called “an absolute disaster” and threatened to let collapse.
  
  
• Bipartisan Group of Governors Calls on Congress to Shore Up Elements of Affordable Care Act The Washington Post by Amy Goldstein — A bipartisan group of governors is trying to jump-start efforts to strengthen private insurance under the Affordable Care Act, urging Congress to take prompt steps to stabilize marketplaces created by law while giving states more freedom from its rules. In a blueprint issued Thursday, the eight governors ask House and Senate leaders of both parties to take several steps to reverse the rising rates and dwindling choices facing many of the 10 million Americans who buy health plans on their own through ACA marketplaces. Specifically, the state leaders say Congress should devote money for at least two years toward “cost-sharing subsidies” that the 2010 health-care law promises to pay ACA insurers to offset deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses for lower-income customers. The House sued the Obama administration over the subsidies’ legality, and President Trump has repeatedly suggested that he might halt the payments — sending tremors through insurance companies in the marketplaces.
  
  
• Governors' Market Stabilization Proposal May Clash with New GOP Repeal Bid Modern Healthcare by Harris Meyer —Two healthccare trains may be headed for a collision in Congress next month, as a bipartisan group of governors and three Senate Republicans push clashing visions of how to fix the Affordable Care Act. But it's unclear whether Republicans and Democrats will be able to agree on any bill — or whether President Donald Trump will sign one — before the Sept. 27 deadline for insurers to decide whether to offer individual-market plans in 2018. Plus, the involvement of only two Republicans in the governors' proposal —Kasich and Nevada's Brian Sandoval, both considered moderates — may signal to congressional Republicans that the proposal does not have the support of conservative GOP governors.

• Gov't Report: 28.1 Million in U.S Lack Health Coverage Associated Press — The government says about 500,000 fewer Americans had no health insurance the first three months of this year, but that slight dip was not statistically significant from the same period in 2016. Progress reducing the number of uninsured appears to have stalled in the last couple of years, and a separate private survey that measured through the first half of 2017 even registered an uptick. Tuesday’s report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 28.1 million uninsured from January-March, or 8.8 percent of the population. That compares to 48.6 million people — or 16 percent of Americans — when the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 under former President Barack Obama. With Republicans still talking of repealing “Obamacare,” it’s unclear if insurance gains will be maintained or reversed.

• Trump Administration Slashes Obamacare Outreach Politico by Rachana Pradhan — The Trump administration will significantly scale back Obamacare outreach efforts for the upcoming enrollment season, slashing spending on advertising and funding to community groups deployed to boost enrollment. Senior Health and Human Services officials on Thursday afternoon said the federal government will cut the Obamacare advertising budget from $100 million to $10 million in the upcoming 2018 enrollment season. Funding for so-called navigator organizations that help people enroll will be cut from $63 million last year to roughly $37 million.

• Medicare Shared-Savings ACOs Cut $1 Billion in Costs Over Three Years Modern Healthcare by Shelby Livingston — Accountable care organizations (ACOs) participating in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Medicare shared-savings program reduced spending by about $1 billion in three years, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported Tuesday. Most of the 428 ACOs in the first three years of the shared-savings program reduced Medicare spending compared to their benchmarks, and a small group of those ACOs produced "substantial" savings. The majority of the ACOs—82 percent—also improved the quality of care they provided, based on data from the CMS on 33 individual quality measures. They outperformed fee-for-service providers in 81 percent of the quality measures. 

Editor: Peter Van Vranken