{"id":13631,"date":"2012-09-11T08:34:19","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T12:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=13631"},"modified":"2012-09-11T08:34:19","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T12:34:19","slug":"wake-county-transitions-to-affordable-care-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2012\/09\/11\/wake-county-transitions-to-affordable-care-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake County Transitions to Affordable Care Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>The Wake County Board of Commissioners have garnered attention for weighing in on national issues<\/a> this year, but now they get to really deal with one: the Affordable Care Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commissioners heard a presentation Monday about what the county is doing to comply with the new federal health care law.<\/p>\n

Dr. Brent Myers, who runs Wake County\u2019s EMS, set the stage like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have lived my life between the ACLU side of things and the Jessie Helms side and that\u2019s where I feel like I am with this group,\u201d he said. \u201cToday, we\u2019re going to try to stick to just the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myers was referencing his parents\u2019 opposing political beliefs, but his audience Monday was made up of three Democrats and four Republicans who have fought fiercely on hot-button issues that include gay marriage, school funding and environmental sustainability.<\/p>\n

Political uncertainty was the theme of the presentation. Wake County has implemented the smaller steps of the ACA as they have been written into law books, but some of the major changes are still ahead and subject to desires of the next president and U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n

Wake\u2019s county government is tied to the ACA in two major ways: first, by the health benefits it provides to its more than 3,000 employees; second, by the various public health services it directly provides.<\/p>\n

Myers said, barring major swings in the interpretation of the plan, that there shouldn\u2019t be any fundamental change in the burden to the taxpayer when it comes to direct health care services provided by the county.<\/p>\n

EMS, for instance, would only see a 2- to 4-percent swing in either direction on its current bottom line, he said, depending on how implementation shakes out.<\/p>\n

Employee health insurance is where things get complicated.<\/p>\n

If the county\u2019s insurance turns out to be less efficient than a plan a county employee might find on the market place, the county will face a $3,000 fine per employee, per year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this group of people that county politicians will need to make decisions about moving forward.<\/p>\n

It may turn out that the county could pay the fine, pay towards an employees\u2019 private health insurance and both the county and employee would come out better financially.<\/p>\n

People who meet a certain poverty level requirement \u2014 the exact amount hasn\u2019t been hammered out yet, and won\u2019t be until after this fall\u2019s election \u2014 will be eligible to have their insurance partially subsidized by the federal government.<\/p>\n

But only people buying on the private market are eligible for the subsidy, not those who receive health insurance from their employer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they can take that government subsidy and go out on to the market place and buy a plan cheaper than we are charging,\u201d Myers said, \u201cthere comes that notion of paying the $3,000 fine because the person is not getting the best benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essentially, the county and the individual might benefit most, in a limited number of cases, by the county taking the $3,000 and paying towards an individual\u2019s private plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we don\u2019t want is to pay a fine and not provide the employee the best bang for their buck,\u201d Myers said. \u201cThe only reason to pay the fine would be if that could work out cheaper overall.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Do the Commissioners Say?<\/strong>
\nChair Paul Coble was blunt in an interview after the board\u2019s work session. When asked what the ACA will mean for the county he simply said, \u201cMore money.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked for specifics, he continued, \u201cWe\u2019ve already seen it in the shared cost of contraception to now covering the full cost of contraception.\u201d<\/p>\n

The county, like all those who provide health insurance, will now have to cover the full cost of generic birth control, where before the county only covered part of the cost.<\/p>\n

But the increase in cost to the county is just $30,000 overall, according to another county official.<\/p>\n

Myers said it was a non-issue, considering the county spends $30.5 million on health coverage for its employees.<\/p>\n

Coble also mentioned the cost to EMS. But during his presentation, Myers\u2019 said, that the county could save money on EMS, depending on how legislation moves forward. Having to shell out extra, he said, is not a given.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo long as there\u2019s not a major change, we shouldn\u2019t have to change our burden to the citizen,\u201d Myers said. \u201cMost likely \u2026 we end up with a wash or million to the positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic Commissioner Erv Portman also expressed a positive outlook.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look as though it\u2019s going to have any significant adverse effects to the county that I can see so far,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, Coble isn’t so sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no question in my mind, there will be additional costs,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s always additional costs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

County Commissioners met in a work session Monday to hear how the county is implementing the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,23],"tags":[911,912,802,676],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}