Posted on 01/04/2018 3:35:39 PM PST by Kaslin
Although the Trump administration and Congress have struggled to fully repeal Obamacare, while putting a good dent in the law by repealing the individual mandate through tax reform, officials are finding new ways to lower costs and expand coverage to consumers.
On Thursday, the Department of Labor announced a new rule proposal that opens the door to allowing insurance companies to sell plans and coverage across state lines. From Insurance News Net:
In another move toward dismantling the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Labor announced a proposed rule to expand the offering of small business health plans, also known as association health plans. The proposed rule will be published Friday.
Under the proposal, small businesses and sole proprietors would have more freedom to band together to provide health insurance for employees.
The proposed rule applies only to employer-sponsored health insurance. This would allow employers to join together as a single group to purchase insurance in the large group market.
And here are the basic details from the Labor Department:
As proposed, the rule would:
Allow employers to form a Small Business Health Plan on the basis of geography or industry. A plan could serve employers in a state, city, county, or a multi-state metro area, or it could serve all the businesses in a particular industry nationwide;
Allow sole proprietors to join Small Business Health Plans, clearing a path to access health insurance for the millions of uninsured Americans who are sole proprietors or the family of sole proprietors.
The rule will be posted Friday, January 5 for public comment.
2. The doctors in California won't accept patients with the Kansas insurance coverage because they won't be willing to treat patients for the low payments the Kansas insurers will be offering.
3. The Kansas Insurers will pay a set fee per procedure, no matter where the insured lives. If you live in a high-priced state or want a Beverly-Hills doctor with sky-high fees, YOU pay the difference.
You want affordable health care? Get your state to bring its healthcare regulations in line, or move.
It will have little to no impact on rates.
Companies rate the insurance based on the zip code of where the insured lives and where the services will be accessed.
Also insurance networks tend to be local so if you live in Texas but buy a a cheaper plan from Oklahoma it is quite possible you might not be able to find a provider in your local area that is in Network making the coverage next to worthless.
This buying across state lines is a red herring.
Yep.
In fact that is something that companies consider when they incorporate.
I have had insurance from Texas when I lived in Michigan, insurance from Mississippi when I lived in Ohio.
This just makes it possible for smaller companies to do what larger companies do.
Supply and demand only drive prices when you're dealing with a product or service where buyers interact directly with sellers. That's not the case in insured medical care, where every transaction has THREE parties:
- the patient (who functions as the buyer but doesn't have any incentive to minimize costs because he doesn't actually pay directly for the service he receives)
- the insurance company (which also functions as the buyer but doesn't have any incentive to maximize quality because they aren't the ones who have to live with the aftermath of a medical procedure)
- the doctor (who functions as the seller but deals with two different "buyers" -- one of them who doesn't care about the price and the other who doesn't care about the quality)
I didn’t miss the point. I may have just been confused about what the poster was asking. I thought the question was a hypothetical one about the impact of allowing insurers to operate across state lines in all cases, not a question about the new regulation that allows “associations” to insure people across state lines.
100% agree with you. This doesn’t solve any problems, won’t lower premiums (because costs are pretty much established by the regulations pertaining to a given area), and is unlikely to increase consumer choice in very many instances.
I do not have to band together to buy most anything else so why health insurance? I want to be able to buy what coverage I want when I want. This is the United States and not say England.
Theresa May FINALLY apologises for 55,000 cancelled operations after denying NHS was in crisis
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3619549/posts
This is huge!!
Looks like the msm/drivebys haven’t heard the good news yet or it would be all over the front pages!!Oh yeah,I forgot. They are deep state/mockingbird types,not their kind of news.
Exactly news is not news anymore. Only agenda driven “news.”
This will be great. I work for small management company. If we could band together with the national apartment association our rates could be so much better, maybe even better insurance.
My insurance is $1200. per month according to my employer. I have some doubts about that, but it is high. I pay about $500 for my portion.
I can hardly wait to turn 65.
Medicare is a ticking time bomb, soon it will be rationed healthcare.
Not true at all. Insurance companies control costs by establishing networks of providers. The insurance company directs the patient to the provider and in turn the provider charges a set, negotiated price to the insurance company. If the provider is not within the company's network then the provider can charge anything they want to and the insurance company has to pay it. That's why policy holders pay a higher percentage and a higher deductible for out of network service as opposed to in-network service. If a single person in California wants to buy a policy from the Kansas company then they aren't going to go to the expense of establishing a network. They aren't going to make any money off the California customer. They will, in all likelihood, decline that person's business.
You want affordable health care? Get your state to bring its healthcare regulations in line, or move.
Won't make a difference. Out of network is out of network no matter what state you are in.
But there will be competition only if the business can make money at it. Selling across state lines is a money losing proposition.
That was kind of sarcastic. At this time my husband has better insurance than I do. I probably will have met my deductible and out of pocket by March, April for sure so at least after that I won’t be paying any more bills. 2 epidurals, neurologists and neurosurgeons aren’t cheap. :(
Excellent. Small businesses with a national presence need this. All business need this. What do they mean by small? Less than 10, 50, 100 employees? I suspect a small number.
Color me skeptical of this remotely having the impact that the ideologues think it will..
Worked in this industry for a while now, and I know it tickles the ideological ivories, but the pragmatic reality is, it won’t be remotely what folks think.
Ask anyone who’s ever had out of state insurance, you’ll start to get just an inkling of the reality that’s going to happen.
WOOT!
Kudos to Trump, Bannon, and the Dept. of Labor.
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