Summit to explore ACA’s ?impact in Rhode Island

Providers, insurers and employers will gather Feb. 26 at a summit to focus on the Affordable Care Act – popularly known as Obamacare – and how it’s affecting Rhode Island’s perpetually evolving health care system.

The Providence Business News Summit on Health Care Reform & The Insurance Exchange will be held from 8-11 a.m. at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick. It will feature two panels comprising 10 professionals from Rhode Island’s private and public health care sectors.

The first panel will discuss how the ACA, signed into law in 2010, has impacted providers, employers and insurers – negatively or positively.

The second panel will focus on the future of HealthSource RI, Rhode Island’s public health insurance exchange, and whether it should be funded locally or left to the federal government.

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HealthSource RI is headed by newly appointed Director Anya Rader Wallack, who entered the fray last month after taking over from former Director Christine C. Ferguson.

Wallack, part of the second panel, says the exchange should remain state-based and could ultimately help local businesses, unify eligibility systems across human-service programs and save the state money.

“We’ve already spent a whole lot of money with this and there would be a lot of transition costs associated with going to the feds,” Wallack said. “I’m confident I can run the state-based exchange for less than what the feds would charge us.”

Currently, Rhode Island is just one of 13 states, plus Washington, D.C., to have an independent state-based exchange, while others are either completely run by the federal government or work in collaboration as a quasi-independent entity.

But the exchange is just one, albeit much-debated, provision of the ACA, which has been rolled out over the last four years.

Sandra Coletta, Care New England chief operating officer, says the law has gone a long way toward insuring people, but says there’s still more to do.

“Health insurance and access to care are two different components,” said Coletta, who will be part of the first panel. “Some of the plans carry with them very high deductibles, and to fund those deductibles, access to care still comes with a significant financial burden.”

Coletta, however, is bullish on the framework established by the ACA, saying it sets the groundwork for more provider collaboration.

The increased amount of newly insured people is also having a ripple effect on providers throughout Rhode Island and the country.

Dr. Andrew Sussman, president of CVS Health Corp.’s walk-in MinuteClinic, says retail clinics are meeting a demand created by the increased volume of newly insured customers.

“As we have experienced elsewhere in New England and across the U.S., MinuteClinic can support the primary care medical-home model in Rhode Island by offering services at convenient locations near where patients live and work,” he said.

Health reform is also keeping busy financial planners like James J. Raiola, of James Raiola, CFP & Associates. He spends a large portion of his time working with businesses helping them to understand the ACA and how it affects them and their employees.

Slated to join Wallack on the second panel, Raiola echoed the sentiment that the ACA has done a great job covering the individual market, but says it still faces challenges.

The state exchange will be facing more-aggressive competition from the private sector. Private marketplaces are already being established, and can have a competitive edge because of their ability to change more efficiently to the specific needs of businesses without being bogged down by the gridlock that can occur within the public and political sphere.

“It will be up to [the] exchange to market for itself and compete,” Raiola said. But beware the industry has a tendency to change at the “speed of sound.”

“If you can’t accept change, you have no business being in this business,” he said.

To register for the summit, click HERE.•

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