Nearly 1,500 waivers later, the Obama administration?s controversial effort to free some companies from the burdens of the new health care law is coming to an end.
But the questions ? and the controversy ? are far from over.
Continue ReadingThe waivers were supposed to help people who have ?mini-med? health plans ? bare-bones insurance plans that don?t come anywhere close to providing the amount of coverage the health care reform law requires. The script seemed to be pretty much written: Those plans would end in 2014, and in the meantime, companies would get waivers so people wouldn?t lose their coverage.
Now, there are new questions being raised about these plans. Could they trip up young adults from getting the better health coverage they?re supposed to get under the law? Who, exactly, is supposed to regulate them?
And ? are they really going to disappear in 2014 after all?
There?s a lot more to the mini-med plans than the controversy over the waivers ? which is how most people know about them. But that controversy has been a constant source of political headaches for the Democrats.
Republicans insist the waivers are political gifts from the White House to its friends ? especially those in labor. The administration says that?s not true and that they?re a necessary stopgap until 2014, when the rest of the health care reform law kicks in.
Now, however, the Department of Health and Human Services is winding down the waivers, which help the plans keep lower benefit limits than they?re supposed to have under the law. The deadline for applying to the waiver program expired last week, but the waivers themselves can last another two years.
To hear critics of the mini-med plans tell it, the coverage barely counts as insurance. ?It gives people a false sense of security,? Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said during a December 2010 commerce committee hearing on mini-meds. ?It lets [people] think they have health insurance when they really don?t. By the time they realize they don?t have real health insurance, it?s too late.?
But HHS reasoned that even the worst insurance is better than no insurance. So like it or not, mini-meds are here to stay until at least 2014. And that presents policy challenges ? some immediate and others longer term.
What about the next two years?
These obscure health plans ? also called limited-benefit plans ? were thrust into the spotlight last year when The Wall Street Journal reported McDonald?s Corp. had considered dropping coverage for its nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers because it wouldn?t be able to meet the health reform requirement known as the medical loss ratio, which limits health plans? administrative costs.
Both McDonald?s and HHS denied the report, but the issue lingers because the Obama administration last December granted the mini-med plans a one-year exemption from the MLR requirement to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health services. The skimpy plans? low benefit payouts and relatively high administrative costs make the MLR threshold a pretty big challenge.
Little is known about how implementing the MLR would affect mini-meds, so HHS has been collecting financial data on the plans and is scheduled to issue updated guidance on MLR requirements this year.
?It?s a gray market,? said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. ?We need to know a lot more about it.?
us open the weather channel national weather service ashley greene weatherchannel rupert grint rupert grint
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন