Even though health insurance enrollments have been surging in the first weeks of December, the pent-up demand and the lost month of October have left too many people out. So the administration has worked with insurers to
extend the deadline for obtaining health insurance by Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, and has asked insurers to accept premiums after Jan. 1 for policies effective that date.
Much of Health and Human Services' plan is less about new requirements, and more about pushing insurance plans to take certain steps to smooth the transition into new health-care law plans. The administration is "encouraging" insurers to allow people who sign up after the Dec. 23 deadline to start coverage on Jan. 1 -- and urging them to accept payments for those January policies after the first of the month.
"Many do retroactive coverage in the current market," Medicare spokeswoman Julie Bataille said. "We want to continue to work with them. Many of the plans will be interested in making sure they get paid after people enrolled."
Administration officials said that health insurer Aetna had agreed to accept January premium payments through Jan. 8.
HHS has also asked insurance plans to keep refilling prescriptions that were covered under an enrollee's previous policy—and charge patients' visits for acute conditions to out-of-network doctors as if the physician were part of the health plan.
So making sure there's time for new enrollments is a priority, as is making sure that the transition for people changing plans is a smooth is possible. It's a pain in the neck for insurers, and there's some anonymous grousing to the
Washington Post reporter writing this story. But they are getting a whole boatload of new customers, after all, which should allay some of their pain.