California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announces extension of Anthem healthcare policies.
Anthem joins Blue Shield of California in putting off the cancellations at the insistence of California’s insurance commissioner. Both insurance companies failed to give policy holders the 90-day notice required by law.
The California Department of Insurance explained: “After being informed by Anthem that due to a computer glitch 104,000 policyholders had not received 90 days’ notice … the commissioner asked Anthem Blue Cross to send out new notices to those policyholders and give them the option to extend their current policies, with their current doctors and hospitals at their current rates until Feb. 28.”
If all of the Anthem clients extended their policies, they would save about $23 million, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said.
The Anthem and Blue Shield policy holders are among the more than a million Californians with existing individual insurance policies that do not meet the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits standard, as it’s applied in California.
“Neither state nor federal law allows me to stop the 1 million cancellation notices sent to Californians, despite my opposition to these cancellations,” Jones said Nov. 12. “We will, however, do everything within our power to extend existing policies where health insurers are not in full compliance with notice requirements.”
The cancellations — more accurately notices that new policies are needed — affect a distinct minority of Californians. The majority get their health care coverage via employer plans, Medi-Cal or Medicare. About 1.86 million state residents are individually insured, while 16 million have employer-generated insurance.
Meanwhile, Sen. Diane Feinstein has backed “a commonsense fix” to the cancellation issue, which has dominated Obamacare headlines in recent weeks. The California senator is backing what’s billed as the Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act from Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. The bill would require insurance companies to extend private market insurance policies “indefinitely.”
“The Affordable Care Act is a good law, but it is not perfect,” said Feinstein, whose support was key in enacting healthcare reform.
The California Association of Health Plans has warned consumers to “carefully weigh the potential costs of delaying enrollment” under the Affordable Care Act, however.
Those who are eligible for a subsidy via the Covered California program would save by signing up for new coverage by Dec. 15 in order to start receiving the financial aid in January.
“I disagreed with health insurers’ decision to cancel policies and Covered California’s decision to require health insurers selling in the Exchange to cancel existing policies on Dec. 31,” Jones said last week in announcing the Blue Shield insurance extensions. Jones, however, is a supporter of health care reform under Obamacare.
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