California’s insurance commissioner says the state Obamacare operation is denying “individuals and families the opportunity to keep their existing health insurance as President Obama promised.”
Commissioner Dave Jones says Covered California’s decision not to allow extensions of outdated health insurance policies discriminates against individual buyers of insurance, while small business customers are allowed to renew coverage through 2014.
The state Affordable Care Act health insurance exchange had the option of allowing carriers to extend private-market policies that didn’t comply with Obamacare’s “essential health benefits” standard. Covered California’s board voted Nov. 21 not to do so.
“Over a million Californians have received cancellation notices from their health insurer,” Jones said in response to the vote. “On behalf of these policyholders I am disappointed in Covered California’s action.”
Jones succeeded in winning extensions from two major insurers in the individual market because they failed to give consumers sufficient notice of cancellations. The insurance commissioner cannot override Covered California’s decisions, however. The insurers are Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. About a million Californians are affected by the cancellations mandated by the Obamacare operation in California.
President Obama, under fire from critics, decided earlier in the month to allow yearlong extensions of insurance policies that don’t provide essential health benefits under the Affordable Care Act.
Healthy younger adults have been hit with significant increases in replacing their outdated policies with Obamacare-compliant coverage, as was anticipated under healthcare reform. Extensions would keep many out of the state marketplace.
Covered California CEO Peter Lee told reporters Nov. 19 that having a diversified risk pool — with a mix of younger and older customers — “is critical to the ongoing viability and the out-of-the-gate viability of exchanges.”
Jones replied: “Covered California could have honored President Obama’s request, without causing damage to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act or the exchange.” Federal healthcare laws mitigate the risk of health insurers having a disproportionate share of sick people in their risk pool in 2014, he said.
Lee also worried about Californians staying with “bad” healthcare policies for another year.
Jones said all existing policies are not “junk insurance.” California has strong coverage mandates, he said, as demonstrated by the many policyholders who want to keep their existing policies and doctors.
“Allowing existing policyholders to keep their health insurance for the duration of 2014 will not undermine the implementation of the ACA, but rather will give consumers more time to figure out what makes sense for their families,” Jones said.
Jones maintains he is a strong supporter of the Affordable Care Act.
Covered California said it would be sending information directly to those with cancelled policies, and would set up a hotline for “consumers to resolve enrollment issues.”
“The consumer is front and foremost in Covered California’s policy decision process,” Lee said. “These new strategies will provide consumers a better enrollment experience, more flexibility in the selection of a plan and, most importantly, increased knowledge with which to make the best health coverage choice possible.”
The states of New York, Washington, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Indiana and Vermont already said they will not permit extensions of previously canceled policies. North Carolina and Florida are among those allowing the extensions.
The number of states not allowing extensions amounts to a rejection of Obama’s latest policy, designed to appease critics, but also can be seen as an indication that the president’s healthcare reforms are workable.
I am a supporter of ACA but it needs to be refined. My wife and I will see our insurance costs double in California for a bronze plan with a HIGHER deductible. We are among the small group of about 6% who are self employed and buy individual policies.
Insurance companies are taking advantage of us and this needs to be addressed. We need a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases. At this point the state of California does not have regulators to address excessive rate increases by insurance companies. These issues should be addressed head on so ACA can be implemented fairly!
I’m in a similar situation with my insurance premiums going up some but my very good coverage being replaced with totally crappy coverage that I can’t even afford to use.
It’s all basic math.
6% of the U.S. population is about 19 million people, so I don’t think it should be considered a “small group.”
According to insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski, rate increases were inevitable because it is estimated that the insurers’ baseline costs will go up by 30% to 50% due to the ACA’s mandates. How is it possible for insurers to not significantly increase premiums and/or decrease benefits?
Just think about how many of us with existing insurance will have to endure rate increases/benefits decreases in order to compensate for just one new customer with a long-term and/or terminal illness. Just one person signing up with a terminal cancer, for example, and that person goes through treatments and hospitalizations that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that money will be recouped through people like you and me. The govt knew this would happen.
If you owned a business, do you think it would be fair if the government passed one law that would double your costs and another law that prohibited you from increasing your customers’ costs?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that people with preexisting conditions, for example, should have been out of luck. I just think that they should have left the rest of us alone. But then, of course, I guess that wouldn’t have worked either, because the whole plan would be foiled without us to pay for the newbies.
Well, thank you to Mr. Jones for trying to do the right thing by the citizens of California even if Mr. Lee/Covered CA has refused.
Quoted from this article: “Lee also worried about Californians staying with ‘bad’ healthcare policies for another year.”
The truth is that ACA and Covered CA are forcing many of us out of great policies and into substandard policies or forcing us out of affordable policies and into unaffordable policies. My current policy is superior in 9 ways and inferior in 1 way to what I’m being offered for more money.
Quoted from this article: “Covered California CEO Peter Lee told reporters Nov. 19 that having a diversified risk pool — with a mix of younger and older customers — ‘is critical to the ongoing viability and the out-of-the-gate viability of exchanges’.”
What he really means is: Our whole plan is robbing Peter to pay Paul, so don’t you dare take Peter out of the equation!
In a nutshell. As a result of the “Affordable Care Act,” I will no longer have affordable health care, and as a result of Covered California I will no longer be covered.
The ACA is 100% unconstitutional regardless of what that disgrace John Roberts ruled – It’s a tax. The power to tax is the power to destroy. NO WHERE in the U.S. Constitution does it give the Outlaw Congress any authority to steal the fruits of my labor to subsidize anyone’s health care insurance.
NO WHERE in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize the bandits in the Outlaw Congress to force anyone to obtain health care insurance or employers to provide it. The unconstitutional ACA is imploding and will kill itself off along with what’s left of the middle class. The ACA was another giant step towards the Sovietization of these united States of America.