Okay, so short-term health plans are back to not really being short-term -- or likely will be so, as of July. HHS has rolled back the Obama administration rule that limited such plans to three-month terms, a rule that only went into effect last April. Once again, these plans -- which do not comply with ACA coverage rules and can be medically underwritten and exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions -- can be offered for up to a year.
So big deal, you might say. Short-term plans with year-long terms were available from 2014-2016 (and in the first quarter of 2017) and did not have a huge impact on ACA marketplace enrollment. Yes, but this time it's different, for two reasons. First, the individual mandate is effectively repealed as of 2019, so people need not obtain ACA-compliant coverage. Second, premiums in the ACA-compliant market have skyrocketed in the last two years (thanks largely to Republican sabotage), so more people are priced out. Louise Norris's analysis strongly implies that HHS is lowballing projected enrollment with its estimate of 100-200,000. See Louise's post for a thorough overview of how short-term plans work and who's likely to buy them.
Short-term plans can be very cheap, and coverage can be very limited (especially if you have a serious pre-existing condition, which will be excluded). ACA-compliant plans, on the other hand, can be astronomically expensive if you're not subsidy-eligible, particularly if you're in your late fifties or early sixties.
As the individual market for health insurance fractures, I want to take a look at one tweener market that may help a few people navigate between the Scylla of unaffordable coverage (say, $1,000 per month for a solo plan with a $7000 deductible) and the Charybdis of unregulated coverage that may exclude, say, drug coverage or pregnancy, cap total coverage, and be medically underwritten.
So big deal, you might say. Short-term plans with year-long terms were available from 2014-2016 (and in the first quarter of 2017) and did not have a huge impact on ACA marketplace enrollment. Yes, but this time it's different, for two reasons. First, the individual mandate is effectively repealed as of 2019, so people need not obtain ACA-compliant coverage. Second, premiums in the ACA-compliant market have skyrocketed in the last two years (thanks largely to Republican sabotage), so more people are priced out. Louise Norris's analysis strongly implies that HHS is lowballing projected enrollment with its estimate of 100-200,000. See Louise's post for a thorough overview of how short-term plans work and who's likely to buy them.
Short-term plans can be very cheap, and coverage can be very limited (especially if you have a serious pre-existing condition, which will be excluded). ACA-compliant plans, on the other hand, can be astronomically expensive if you're not subsidy-eligible, particularly if you're in your late fifties or early sixties.
As the individual market for health insurance fractures, I want to take a look at one tweener market that may help a few people navigate between the Scylla of unaffordable coverage (say, $1,000 per month for a solo plan with a $7000 deductible) and the Charybdis of unregulated coverage that may exclude, say, drug coverage or pregnancy, cap total coverage, and be medically underwritten.
