California won't extend canceled health policies

[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