A Fateful Thursday For The ACA: Likely Effects And Legal Reactions

Thursday, October 12, 2017, was one of the most eventful days in the history of the Affordable Care Act.  Late Thursday morning, President Trump released an executive order directing the Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services to begin the process of drafting rules that will expand the use of association health plans, exempting small employer plans from the ACA’s small group consumer protections and perhaps preempting state regulation; expand the length and renewability of short-term coverage; and expand the ability of employers to use health reimbursement accounts to shift coverage of their employees to the individual market. That evening, the administration announced that it will no longer be reimbursing insurers for the reductions in out-of-pocket limits, deductibles, and other forms of cost sharing that the ACA requires insurers to provide to enrollees in silver plans with incomes below 250 percent of poverty and to Native Americans. These two steps obviously furthered the administration’s two-part strategy to undermine the ACA. President Trump is reportedly furious that Congress failed to repeal the ACA and has set out to single-handedly dismantle it himself. The cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payment cut-off will, in tandem with other steps taken by the administration to discourage enrollment in the individual market, drive up the cost of coverage. The executive order will open escape routes so that healthy people will leave the ACA-compliant in...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage association health plans cost-sharing reduction payments health reimbursement arrangement short-term limited duration plans Source Type: blogs