I am so shocked that an insurance company would evade the new law!
WASHINGTON — One of the largest health insurance companies in the United States is advising insurance brokers on how to evade new mandates and benefits set to take effect next year under President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.
In an email sent to brokers, the insurance giant Aetna explains how they can renew customers’ current health plans before Jan. 1, a strategy the Los Angeles Times reported this week is under consideration at other big health insurance companies.
Obamacare includes a number of new rules for health insurance plans that will become law at the beginning of next year, or whenever existing policies expire. By extending customers’ plans before then, health insurance companies and their customers can lock in health plans that don’t adhere to those rules for up to one more year.
Among the new rules this approach could skirt are requirements that health insurance cover a minimum set of benefits, prohibitions on turning away people with pre-existing conditions, bans on charging higher rates to sick people or to women, limitations on how much extra older people can be asked to pay, and rules against insurance companies refusing to renew policies.
The company is calling its outreach to insurance brokers “Aetna’s Premium Savings program.”“In 2014, changes set in motion by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may lead to dramatic increases in premiums,” says the email from Aetna, which the company verified is authentic. “By electing a fourth quarter 2013 renewal, some of your clients can achieve significant cost savings in 2014 and take time to assess their business needs for the future, without sacrificing their current coverage today.”
Along with the rest of the health insurance industry, Aetna has been sounding the alarm that the health care law will boost premiums for some people when its market reforms go into effect. The email to brokers cites “[f]actors such as essential health benefits, maximum plan deductibles, the application of new taxes and fees and new rating rules.”
The practice of renewing current health insurance plans before Jan. 1 may not be widespread. The strategy allows companies and customers a year at the most under the old rules and poses administrative challenges to health insurers, The Huffington Post reported Wednesday.
But Aetna is embracing the approach as a choice for its policyholders.
“And while you are considering your policy savings, have you ever considered the investment advantages of owning a mortgage backed CDI?”