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WASHINGTON (AP) — Expanded health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature legislative legacy, will cost the government more, according to an official study released Thursday. Still, on balance, the measure more than pays for itself.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the health care law will cost $1.34 trillion over the coming decade, $136 billion more than the CBO predicted a year ago. That 11 percent hike is mostly caused by higher-than-expected enrollment in the expanded Medicaid program established under the law.
All told, 22 million more people will have health care coverage this year than if the law had never been enacted, CBO said. The measure's coverage provisions are expected to cost $110 billion this year.
The number of uninsured people this year is anticipated at 27 million.
About 90 percent of the U.S. population will have coverage, a percentage that is expected to remain stable into the future.
The study also projected a slight decline in employment-based coverage, although it will remain by far the most common kind among working-age people and their families.
Employers now cover some 155 million people, about 57 percent of those under 65. That's expected to decline to 152 million people in 2019. Ten years from now, employers will be covering about 54 percent of those under 65.
CBO said part of the shrinkage is attributable to the health care law: some workers may qualify for Medicaid, which is virtually free to them, and certain employers may decide not to offer coverage because a government-subsidized alternative is available. (Larger employers would face fines if they take that route.)
But the agency also noted that employer coverage had been declining due to rising medical costs well before the health care law was passed, and that trend continues.
The analysis underscores the view that the health care law is driving the nation's gains in insurance coverage, which raises political risks for Republicans who would repeal it.
Taking seniors covered by Medicare out of the equation, the government devotes $660 billion to subsidizing health care for people under 65, including the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled and tax benefits for employer-provided health insurance.
The budget office did not provide a new estimate of Obamacare's overall impact on the federal deficit, other than to say that it is, on net, expected to reduce the deficit. The law included a roster of tax increases and cuts in Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers to pay for coverage expansion.
CBO is a congressional agency that does budget forecasts and cost estimates of legislation.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Utah Supreme Court cleared the way for a woman to sue for millions of dollars in damages after she said polygamous leader Warren Jeffs forced her to marry her cousin when she was 14.
Elissa Wall can seek the payout from the sect's communal property trust, which is now controlled by the state, the high court decided Wednesday. Her testimony helped convict Jeffs in 2007 of being an accomplice to her rape, though the verdict was later overturned on a technicality.
Jeffs is now serving a life prison sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting girls he considered wives.
The court's decision comes as the federal government goes after the group on multiple fronts, including court cases alleging food stamp fraud and child labor in Utah. A jury in Phoenix also found that the twin polygamous towns on the Utah-Arizona border denied basic rights like police protection to nonbelievers.
Against that backdrop, Wall's lawyer said the ruling on her lawsuit will help hold accountable the leaders of the group known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
"It's a further acknowledgement that the rules and laws of the United States and the state of Utah apply to everyone," Alan Mortensen said Thursday.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but Wall has spoken publicly and written a book about her experiences.
Jeffs does not have lawyer, and the group does not have a spokesman or a phone listing where leaders can be contacted.
A lawyer for the property trust, Jeffrey Shields, said the opinion made important points in the complex case even though the Utah Supreme Court didn't agree with his argument that the lawsuit should be tossed out. He argued at a hearing last fall that Wall came to a secret agreement with her former husband to help her win money from the trust.
Her onetime husband, Allen Steed, previously said the sexual relationship was not forced, but he agreed not to stand in the way of her lawsuit if she approved a lighter plea deal to resolve a rape charge against him, Shields said.
Wall's lawyers say Steed was 19 at the time of the 2001 marriage, and sect leaders who held sway over him are to blame for what happened.
The court decided the agreement appears to be legal and should not derail the lawsuit.
The case now goes back to a lower court. While some estimates have put the possible damages as high as $40 million, a judge determined it will more likely top out at $5 million, Wall's lawyer said.
She will be suing United Effort Plan trust, which holds nearly all the land, homes and businesses in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.
Estimated to be worth about $110 million, the trust was built by the polygamous group to fulfill a belief in holding property communally. The Utah attorney general took it over in 2005 amid allegations of mismanagement.
MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. (AP) — Crews made progress Thursday against wind-whipped wildfires that spread from Oklahoma into southern Kansas, burning hundreds of square miles of largely grassland.
While at least one home in Kansas and several outbuildings were destroyed, no serious injuries were reported.
Smoke from the fire, which burned about 620 square miles in the two states, was reportedly detected as far away as St. Louis, hundreds of miles to the northeast.
Gov. Sam Brownback said Thursday that the fire was largely contained in Kansas except in Barber County, which is southwest of Wichita along the border with Oklahoma. He encouraged people to heed requests to evacuate.
"We haven't sustained any fatalities yet, but that doesn't mean we can push it," he said.
In Oklahoma, the fire was moving toward the city of Alva, population about 5,000, but by early Thursday evening, the flames had not advanced enough to prompt evacuations there, according to Oklahoma Forestry Services spokeswoman Michelle Finch-Walker.
Oklahoma authorities said the cause of the fire was under investigation.
Strong winds with gusts of 50 mph fed the fires Wednesday, but with conditions "not as intense" and more crews arriving, firefighters were able to "get out there and really attack the fire" on Thursday, said Shawna Hartman, the spokesman for the Kansas Forest Service.
Darcy Golliher, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Incident Management Team, said the section of the fire in Barber County, which has sustained the most damage, was about 15 percent contained late Thursday and is expected to last through Friday. She said there hopefully would be only a few hot spots to monitor over the weekend.
"It will all depend on the wind," she said.
She said in an email that authorities are referring to the fire as the Anderson Creek Fire because it started in Anderson Creek, Oklahoma, and worked its way up through Kansas. And, while there are various sections of land burning, it's all considered one fire.
The fire, which came close to Medicine Lodge on Wednesday, destroyed a home and an outbuilding on the outskirts of the Barber County community of about 2,000 residents. Voluntary evacuation orders issued there earlier were lifted Thursday afternoon.
Voluntary evacuations had also been sought for the small towns of Sun City and Lake City.
Mark Dugan, who owns a ranch in Barber County, said Thursday that controlled burning is common practice in the region because it gets rid of unwanted vegetation. But this fire destroyed about 15 miles of fence on his land.
He said he now has about 300 head of cattle on his wheat field, where they'll have to stay because the fence is gone.
"I guess I'll leave them there and not worry about harvesting the wheat," he said.
Media mogul Ted Turner's Z-Bar Ranch in southern Kansas also sustained "considerable damage" from the fire, Turner spokesman Phillip Evans said in an email Thursday.
A separate grass fire also hit near the Kansas town of Burrton, which is about 30 miles northwest of Wichita. One home and several livestock were destroyed. That fire had been controlled later Thursday.
In Texas, where strong winds and low humidity created ideal fire conditions, some people were briefly evacuated Wednesday from their homes in Skellytown, about 45 miles northeast of Amarillo, said Linda Moon, Texas A&M Forest Service spokesman.