Whether they like it or not, health insurers are now part of a new “fix”

Whether they like it or not, health insurers are now part of a new “fix” for revamping the floundering implementation of President Obama’s health reform law. The president on Nov. 14 made a dramatic and what one insider source calls a “politically necessary” policy shift to allow insurers the option of letting consumers keep health plans that previously had been cancelled because they did not meet stricter Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage requirements. Health carriers can now extend for one year certain plans that were written off their books for 2014, but must receive state regulatory approval before re-offering coverage already given up for dead, and point these same consumers to other exchange-based options. No one is certain if insurers want to take this step — or if state insurance commissioners will approve any requests, let alone consider what are sure to be new, higher rate requests by carriers seeking to adjust cancelled plans’ premiums to account for medical cost increases in 2014. Already, Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler (D) in a Nov. 14 statement said he had serious concerns with the Obama change and will not permit extensions of cancelled policies that didn’t meet the requirements of the ACA. Kreidler said people with cancelled policies can get better coverage on the state’s public exchange. “I think it is getting in front of reality. I don’t think [Obama] had a choice. They got to the point where they had to do something to allow these existing plans, but it puts the plans in a very difficult spot,” Republican Tom Scully, the CMS administrator from 2001 to 2004 under President George W. Bush and now senior counsel at Alston & Bird, LLP, tells AIS. At least one major carrier, Aetna Inc., said it would try to restart the plans, but cautioned that it would need help. “State regulators will need to allow us to update our policies and secure appropriate rates so we can get these plans back in the market,” Aetna spokesperson Cynthia Michener said in a statement. — Excerpted from Health Plan Week.