Here comes the disaster known as Trumpcare.
It will start in Idaho and most likely move to other conservative states.
Idaho regulators have approved new rules in their state, that will allow health insurers to sell health care policies that don’t comply with current ACA law.
Blue Cross of Idaho plans to test the legality of Idaho’s new rules and start selling junk policies in March. Also known as Trumpcare.
The Idaho Department of Insurance last month became the first state regulator to say it would let insurers begin offering “state-based plans” for consumers that involved practices generally banned for individual insurance under the ACA, including tying premium rates to enrollees’ pre-existing health conditions. Idaho officials said they wanted lower-cost options for consumers after increases in ACA plans’ premiums.
Blue Cross said the proposed new plans would include a maximum benefits payout of $1 million per person annually. Under the ACA, insurance plans aren’t allowed to limit the total coverage. Some of the new state-based plans proposed by Blue Cross would also have a higher cap on the out-of-pocket charges consumers pay for their care than is authorized by the ACA.
The policies would have lifetime limits and tie premiums to enrollees pre-existing conditions. Both would violate current federal law, according to Timothy S. Jost, an emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University:
If the new plans are sold as proposed, “a number of the provisions violate the ACA,” said Timothy S. Jost, an emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University. “States are not free to authorize the violation of federal law.” Federal officials “have the obligation to enforce the federal law” if a state fails to do so, he said.
Larry Levitt, Senior VP at Kaiser and noted health care expert, explains the real risk of Idaho brazenly ignoring federal law, to allow Trumpcare junk policies to be sold.
It could very well skyrocket health care premiums in the ACA marketplace.
Informative tweet storm here by Levitt.
And your Trumpcare pre-existing questionnaire is about to become reality.
According to Levitt, it’s basically up to the Trump’s HHS to enforce ACA rules and you can bet they won’t. Look for lawsuits to stop this brazen attempt to sabotage the ACA marketplace.
Trumpcare is here and it’s a disaster.