Saying, “California is looking very closely to how we respond to the call of the president,” the state’s Obamacare marketplace is close to a decision on whether to allow extensions of outdated health insurance policies.
Covered California CEO Peter Lee told reporters the state Obamacare operation would make a decision this week. The organization’s board meets Thursday.
President Obama, under fire from critics, decided last week to allow yearlong extensions of insurance policies that don’t meet the standards of “essential health benefits” under the Affordable Care Act.
States such as California that run their own Obamacare shops have to decide to what extent the extensions would hurt their enrollments. Insurance companies are not required to offer extensions of non-compliant healthcare policies, but they are allowed to do so under Obama’s order.
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.
New York, second to California in Obamacare enrollments, just announced its decision not to allow extensions. About a third of those who signed up for private insurance under the Affordable Care Act live in California.
The state marketplaces and insurance companies were taken aback last week as Obama scrambled to head off Democratic defections over the issue of canceled healthcare policies. Obama had famously promised that Americans who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. The new policy applies to those buying health insurance in the private market whose policies were canceled as of Jan. 1.
Healthy younger adults have been hit with significant increases in replacing their outdated policies with Obamacare-compliant coverage, as was anticipated under the Affordable Care Act. Extensions would keep many out of the state marketplace.
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.”
Lee also worried about Californians staying with “bad” healthcare policies for another year.
Two major Covered California providers were ordered by the state insurance commissioner to extend policies until the end of the first quarter 2014, because they did not give consumers sufficient notice of cancellations.
In the state of Washington, the state insurance commissioner immediately rejected the president’s offer to allow insurance carriers to extend policies.
“In the interest of keeping the consumer protections we have enacted — and ensuring that we keep health insurance costs down for all consumers — we are staying the course,” commissioner Mike Kreidler said Nov. 14.
“I understand that many people are upset by the notices they have recently received from their health plans and they may not need the new (essential health) benefits today,” he said.
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said last week that he asked Covered California to allow extensions “so that health insurers are free then from this contract provision and can follow the president’s request, and my request, that they allow their existing customers to renew their policies into 2014.”
Speak Your Mind