The Affordable Care Act (ACA) set forth a long list of requirements for corporations offering health insurance, including rules that guarantee health insurance to individuals through state health insurance exchange health plans. But, Trump opened the door to short-term “junk” health plans that might look good but too often take your money and give you little if anything in return. Now, the Biden administration is proposing to reverse Trump’s rule and ban junk health plans that last longer than three months, reports Fierce Healthcare.
Critics of “short-term” health plans rightly call them junk health plans. They have serious limitations as to what they cover. They do not need to cover people’s preexisting conditions or even essential health benefits–the basic benefits, like cancer care, that any regular health insurance policy must cover. Yet, people often are misled to believe that they are paying for good coverage.
President Trump’s rule allowed the junk health plans to be sold to individuals for one year and then renewed for up to three years. His argument was that they allowed people to get some health insurance, even if they did not have the means to buy comprehensive health insurance. But, if paying less for health insurance means not getting the coverage you need, what is the value of the coverage?
President Biden explains that his administration’s “new proposed rules would close loopholes that the previous administration took advantage of that allow companies to offer misleading insurance products that can discriminate based on pre-existing conditions and trick consumers into buying products that provide little or no coverage when they need it most.” “These plans leave families surprised by thousands of dollars in medical expenses when they actually use health care services like a surgery.”
President Biden hopes to finalize his rule. It would only allow people to buy short-term health plans for a really short period of time. And, it would help ensure that people who signed up for these health plans better understood the limitations of the coverage they were buying.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- As the US population ages, how will people afford long-term care?
- Long-term care insurance likely won’t deliver what you need
- Two tips to help you choose a health plan
- OIG finds widespread inappropriate care denials in Medicare Advantage
- Medicare Advantage ads will continue to mislead despite new rules
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