Obamacare's Help For The Underinsured Is Big But Little Noticed. /// Other ACA News

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Publications/In-the-Literature/2011/Sep/Reduce-Uninsured.aspx

"Obamacare's goal isn't simply helping the uninsured. It's also supposed to help the 'underinsured' --people with policies that are so expensive to maintain, or leave such large gaps in coverage, that paying for health care is still a devastating burden. This problem hasn't gotten nearly the attention it deserves. A new report, just out from the Commonwealth Fund, seeks to change that....Conservatives tend to support higher out-of-pocket spending, because they believe it discourages wasteful spending and improves market competition. As such, many would probably argue the Fund's definition of under-insurance makes the problem seem a lot worse than it is. That's a totally fair argument, at least for those who hold the conservative point of view. Liberals see things differently. One of their biggest complaints about the Affordable Care Act is that it doesn't do enough to help the underinsured....As a result, lots of people will remain underinsured, even once all of the law's new regulations, subsidies, and programs are fully in place. But there's no question that, overall, many fewer people will be underinsured because of the Affordable Care Act." Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic.

What insurance companies are doing in the last week of open enrollment. "Many are concentrating on hard-to-reach groups, sponsoring community events to attract people who had trouble enrolling on their own or need a nudge to take the time to sign up. Some are offering policies inside highly trafficked venues like drugstores or local Y's; Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield even had sign-up stations in Goodwill stores....Insurers have had to pivot during this first year, adapting to abrupt regulatory shifts from the Obama administration and making a series of midcourse corrections. "You really have to be nimble to make this work," said Daniel J. Hilferty, the chief executive of Independence Blue. Many insurers have invested heavily in the first year, although Obama administration officials seem willing to be lenient on the law's requirement that they cap their profits. Federal officials are contemplating changing the way the plans calculate their costs so they include some of the higher expenses that resulted from the difficult start." Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas in The New York Times.

A problem: A lot of uninsured Americans still don't know a lot about Obamacare or health insurance more generally. Olga Khazan in The Atlantic.

The incredible shrinking individual mandate? "The individual mandate may be the most despised part of Obamacare, but the reality is that it's much smaller than people think. It's riddled with exemptions, hardships and other loopholes that allow millions of people off the hook for enrollment by March 31....The White House needs the mandate to make its policies work, as it creates new insurance markets operating under new rules. It needs the exemptions to make the politics work -- or at least to take the edge off some of the sharpest political backlash, like the outcry over the canceled plans that people had been told they could keep." Brett Norman in Politico.

.

Latinos being left behind in health care overhaul. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in the Associated Press.

Californians who used health marketplaces receive voter registration forms. Sandhya Somashekhar in The Washington Post.

Explainer: 3 red states where Obamacare is working well. Ryan Teague Beckwith in Digital First Media.