One of the necessary Obamacare fixes is about to be made, when the administration
closes a loophole that has allowed large employer plans to still qualify under the law even if they don't offer hospitalization. With new regulations the Treasury Department is set to issue, that will end.
The administration intends to disallow plans that "fail to provide substantial coverage for in-patient hospitalization services or for physician services," the Treasury Department said in a notice Tuesday morning. It will issue final regulations banning such insurance next year, it said.
Hundreds of lower-wage employers such as retailers and temporary-staffing companies have been preparing to offer such plans for 2015, the first year large companies are liable for fines if they don’t provide minimum coverage. Some have enrolled workers for insurance beginning Oct. 1.
For employers that have committed as of Nov. 4 to such coverage, the administration will temporarily allow it under the health law, the notice said.
For employees, this loophole created a double problem. Not only did they not have hospitalization coverage, the plans they were offered were qualifying under the law as achieving the minimum-value standard, which meant that employees were not eligible to receive subsidies to purchase better plans on the exchanges. The administration says it will ensure that this problem is also fixed, meaning that if you have insurance, you will have hospital coverage. There will still be variation in how much of a deductible you'll pay for that hospitalization, depending upon how generous of a plan you can afford, but the basic coverage will be there for everyone with insurance.
And now the countdown clock starts for Republicans to start screaming about President Obama overreaching his authority, again.