California won't extend canceled health policies

[Jesus Malverde]

Covered California, the state's health exchange, has rejected President Obama's request to let insurers extend their current health policies, a decision that affects about 1 million Californians who have coverage that doesn't comply with the requirements of the federal health law.

The unanimous vote came Thursday at a meeting in Sacramento of Covered California's five-member board of directors. It means that the agency will continue to require the 11 health insurers that sell coverage through the exchange to terminate by Dec. 31 those individual policies that do not meet all the standards of the Affordable Care Act.

Peter Lee, Covered California's executive director, said extending the deadline would not help consumers. "Our board decided pushing problem down road and leading to potentially more confusion ... was actually too big of a risk," he said during a press conference after the vote.

Obama made the request last week after millions of policyholders around the country received notice they would have to change policies despite the president's promise that anyone wanted to keep their health plan could do so. The controversy only added to the debacle surrounding the launch of the health law's federal website.

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/California-won-t-extend-canceled-health-policies-4999805.php

Covered California also released more detailed enrollment information. As of Tuesday, nearly 79,900 people had enrolled in a health plan through the exchange, and another 135,000 had enrolled in Medi-Cal.

[flamingdem]

1. Good call. It really would add another layer

of confusion.

Sympathy to the small group who will have to pay a bit more.

[Jesus Malverde]

2. Think i heard the "small" group was 1 million in CA..nt

[flamingdem]

3. Wow, some of them got hosed

but in general they were on plans I know well.

$300-500 for garbage with a huge deductible.

Better that they shop for a new policy in I'd estimate 70% of the cases.

[SoCalDem]

4. Gotta just pull the band-aid off

Keeping a sub-standard policy only encourages insurers to keep issuing scammy policies & making more money on them

[Jesus Malverde]

5. I suspect like everything in this debate it's probably an over generalization about their policies.

I'm sure some were perfectly happy with their plans, will be inconvenienced and probably pay more. Others will be better off. The main thing is there are a million people who had their insurance cancelled, in their mind, because Obama. It's important to recognize and not ignore that when people keep complaining.

President Obama thought it was bad enough they passed the exception. I am sure that led to double disappointment for some when California denied it.

[haele]

6. Well, since they took the Medicare/MediCal expansion, there are a lot less people being hosed

And the insurance companies have been under tighter and tighter scrutiny here in California over the past couple years, so there are a fewer percentage of coupon policies (that's what I call most catastrophic policies) that will be cancelled.

This rejection makes a lot of sense if the California Insurance commission (who sponsors Covered California) thinks the state is going to pass Single Payer to begin in 2017 when the ACA allows us to start it up.
By reducing the complication of continuing to have non-compliant and exempt policies, it makes it easier to "roll up" exisitning insurance policies into a single payer model where private insurers will begin to operate similar to Medicare or TriCare/VA supplimental policies and wean Califonrians off the the teat of For-Profit Health Insurance.

It's unfortunate for those who are going to be losing their plans that couldn't become ACA compliant - but hopefully, the pain will be a lot less to them than it has been to those who couldn't get health insurance to get access to care. I suspect that in 3 years, they'll be able to get any health care they need at far less of a cost than any insurance policy they can get through the tax system when we implement it.
I know lots of employee-friendly businesses that would cry "halleluja" when single payer comes around they don't have to pay an insurance company for the priviledge of providing quality health benefits. The slug bottom-line high-profit businesses that normally depend on taxpayer funded health care for their employees will just have to chalk Single Payer off as another operating cost in California.

Haele