Thread: HOUSE DEBATES BILL TO RESTORE HEALTH CARE POLICIES CANCELED BY OBAMACARE

HOUSE DEBATES BILL TO RESTORE HEALTH CARE POLICIES CANCELED BY OBAMACARE

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  THE LEGALITY of President Obama's decree that insurance companies should offer millions of Americans the chance to renew health policies canceled by ObamaCare is being questioned as the House takes up a Republican-sponsored bill to extend old policies for another year — legally.
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• Obama's insurance plan 'fix' stirs confusion, ridicule at state level
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• FOX NEWS FIRST: Dems in a 'fix' | Critics take on Obama's health care 'fix' | Rep. Upton: GOP bill 'better solution'
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• Wash. state says no to 'fix' | Twitter mocks Obama's endless presser | THE KELLY FILE: 'Fix' an industry burden?
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• STIREWALT: A lame duck quacking | ObamaCare 'fix' shifts responsibility to insurers
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• KURTZ: Playing defense with press | OPINION: Radical things Team Obama must do now that ObamaCare has failed

HEALTH CARE

House charges ahead on insurance plan vote, legality of Obama ‘fix’ questioned

Published November 15, 2013FoxNews.com




House Republicans are charging ahead with a vote Friday afternoon on a bill meant to reverse, or at least halt, the wave of insurance plan cancellations, after claiming that President Obama's unilateral attempt to do that might not be legal.

The president on Thursday tried to address the issue by decree, announcing that he's allowing insurance companies to sell policies that would otherwise be out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act for another year. The change was meant to address the concerns of millions of Americans who have lost their current insurance plans because they didn't meet the minimum standards under the law.

But House Speaker John Boehner said he's "highly skeptical that they can do this administratively."

The House will vote later Friday on a bill from Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., that would extend old policies for another year -- not just for those who lost them, but for anyone who might want to buy them.

Upton told Fox News that his bill is a "better answer -- because who knows how his executive order is going to be tested?"

Upton complained Thursday that Obama was "bypassing Congress" with his administrative fix. Aside from the legal questions surrounding the unilateral change, Upton voiced concern that Obama could simply reverse course a few weeks or months down the road.

A vote is expected in the early afternoon on Friday. It is likely to pass, considering Republicans hold the majority in the House, but the Obama administration risks losing Democrats on the vote as well.

The White House has already vowed to veto the bill, suggesting it goes too far.

A newly emerging Democratic alternative, which faces certain House rejection, would let insurers continue coverage deemed substandard under the law for many existing customers, but only through 2014. It would also require insurance companies to tell people they could purchase other policies on federal or state-run insurance exchanges that might be better and cost less.

But either "fix" -- the administrative change from Obama, or either House bill -- is bound to cause problems for the insurance industry and state-level commissioners.

In the wake of Obama's announcement on Thursday, they complained that they were unsure how to implement the change, if at all, considering cancellation notices have already gone out and rates have already been set for 2014 in many states.

Obama plans to meet with insurance industry executives Friday afternoon.

"What we want to do is to be able to say to these folks, you know what, the Affordable Care Act is not going to be the reason why insurers have to cancel your plan," Obama said of the millions who have received cancellation notices.

Until the president made his announcement, the administration had been assuming that individuals currently covered by plans marked for cancellation would switch to alternatives offered in government-established exchanges. If so, they would be joining millions of others who have lacked insurance in the past.

The people with current individual coverage are a known risk to insurers. But those without generally have had less access to medical services and are most costly to care for. The theory has been that moving people with current coverage into the new markets would help stabilize premiums.

Only last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a Senate panel she doubted that retroactively permitting insurers to sell canceled policies after all "can work very well since companies are now in the market with an array of new plans. Many have actually added consumer protections in the last 3 1/2 years."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...ity-obama-fix/

Health Care


Why Obama Can't Just Uncancel All Those Insurance Plans

By John Tozzi November 15, 2013

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President Obama’s plan to reverse himself and let millions of people keep their health policies—the ones that insurance companies cancelled because don’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s standards—is something like an attempt to unscramble an omelet.

Among the problems:
State insurance commissioners are not enthusiastic. They’re the people who are actually in charge of approving the plans and rates that private insurers offer in each state. The regulators association threw tepid water on the plan in a statementThursday, saying the decision “threatens to undermine the new market, and may lead to higher premiums and market disruptions in 2014 and beyond.” These officials can nix the idea at the state level, as Washington state’s regulator already has, according to the New York Times.

The feeling isn’t unanimous: California’s insurance commissioner, who already pushed some health plans to extend policies because they didn’t give customers the notice required by law, favors extending policies. But other state laws make doing somessy. In Florida, too, the commissioner supports the plan.

STORY: Obamacare's Insurance Cancellations: A Feature, Not a Bug

Insurers are also wary. The industry had a cool response to the reversal. Even if insurers want to extend the old policies, and their regulators agree, it’s not clear that there’s enough time. Will doctors and hospitals accept the resurrected plans? Rates and plans are normally filed for approval months ahead of time. “The complexity of trying to uncancel millions of canceled individual policies with only six weeks left in the year is staggering,” Citigroup (C) analyst Carl McDonald wrote, Bloomberg Newsreports.

Extending old plans changes the risk pool next year. The people in the individual market whose plans were cancelled have already passed medical underwriting—the insurance industry’s practice, banned from next year on, of denying coverage to people for being sick or having other preexisting conditions. That means they’re generally a healthier bunch than those entering the exchanges next year. The idea that some of these folks would have to pay more for more robust plans was baked into the law—their premiums will help subsidize coverage for sicker people whom insurers can no longer turn away. That’s why regulators, actuaries, and insurers are warning that the change could destabilize the market next year and drive up premiums for everyone else.

Even if it works, the fix is not a fix—it’s a delay. Obama didn’t say he’d let people keep their old, noncompliant health plans indefinitely. Year-long policies that start through Oct. 1, 2014, will be considered OK, and the administration is “assessing whether to extend it beyond the specified time frame,” according to the administration’s letter (pdf) to insurance commissioners. But whenever the administration does start enforcing that piece of the law, people are going to get another round of cancellation letters from their insurance company. If they don’t have comparable choices on the exchanges, they’ll get angry all over again.

STORY: If Healthcare.gov Isn't Fixed By December, What's Obama's Plan B?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...nsurance-plans

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