Health economists like the idea of giving Medicaid money to the beneficiaries as a cash grant. But they are weak on specifics.
Progressive groups want to kill the Trump reform that created employer-paid personal and portable health insurance. So far, Biden is resisting.
All the news about the rise in maternal mortality was fake news!
Other possible fake stories: declining geographical mobility and rising teen mental health problems.
Yes, Medicaid could deposit money into recipients’ HSA accounts. A lot of them would gladly pay the penalty necessary to use that money for “different” pharmaceuticals. Taxable withdrawals may not be much of an issue either.
“But some liberal groups argue that ICHRAs provide an incentive for companies to discriminate against older, sicker workers and push them into the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace, which could raise premiums for everyone.”
This presumes that the only way to finance universal health insurance is through a hidden tax embedded in the premiums. It’s not the only way and is far from being the best way.
It is technically true that a Trump ICHRA plan could disqualify an employee from receiving ACA tax credits.
But the calculation is (to my mind) very complex. The employee must go out to the exchange and find the benchmark plan, then predict their personal income for the year, and then find out what their premium would be on a private-sector plan using their ICHRA subsidy.
For most people with modest incomes, an ACA plan with government subsidies might be much better than a private-sector plan.
This will not swamp the ACA, any more than it is already swamped.