Jeffrey Young — Health Insurance Giants Discover Way To Skirt Obamacare Regulations For Entire Year

Health insurance companies are looking to put off complying with health care reform rules that guarantee basic benefits and consumer protections -- and they've figured out how to do so for up to one more year.
The Los Angeles Times reports that big health insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint may attempt to skirt new regulations that take effect on Jan. 1, 2014 by renewing some of their customers in the meantime and letting them keep the coverage they currently have for as long as a year after the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is supposed to kick in.

The health care law requires insurance plans sold to individuals who don't get benefits through their employers to cover a minimum set of benefits, prohibits companies from refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions or to charge them higher rates than healthy people, doesn't allow health insurers to levy higher premiums on women than men, limits how much more older people can be made to pay, and guarantees customers can re-up their plans each year.

But those rules don't take effect until January -- or whenever a customer's current health insurance plan expires next year, which could be later. According to the Los Angeles Times, some insurers are weighing a lawful scheme in which they would renew customers' plans before 2014, thus preventing them from having to meet Obamacare standards until as late as Jan. 1, 2015.

The Huffington Post
Health Insurance Giants Discover Way To Skirt Obamacare Regulations For Entire Year
Jeffrey Young