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The Department of Health and Human Services has helpfully pointed out to insurance companies how they can avoid the requirement that dependents can stay on their parent’s policies until the age of 26:
“The new policy applies only to health insurance plans that offer dependent coverage in the first place: while most insurers and employer-sponsored plans offer dependent coverage, there is no requirement to do so,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement Monday.
In addition, families can be charged more for coverage of the young adult to the extent “similarly situated” individuals can be required to pay more under their health plan, HHS said. The young adults must be offered all of the benefit packages available to “similarly situated” individuals who did not lose coverage because their dependent status ended, HHS said.
I’m assuming that the second paragraph means that a dependent who smokes can be charged more, or that before the community rating laws kick in by 2014, any medical history can result in a sharp increase in rates.
But really insurance companies – or self-insured large corporations – don’t have to price young adults off their parent’s policies. According to the rule, they can simply not offer dependent coverage, and that, as they say, is that. While several insurers have actually said they would accelerate the extended coverage and start it in the coming weeks, rather than the September start date the Affordable Care Act mandates, the article points out that self-insured corporations haven’t embraced that concept. Indeed, they would rather avoid taking on more potentially sick customers onto their current insurance plans, even if young adults aged 18-26 are relatively inexpensive to insure. And nothing in the law would force them to do so, backed up by HHS’s rulemaking.
There’s a potential material benefit to insurance companies profiting off of an additional inexpensive customer in their risk pool. For a self-insured corporation that profit is far less clear, and as a result they have backed away from offering the coverage. And they apparently can just opt out, if they wish.
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Surprise! I’ll now go back to banging my head on the desk.
Why shouldn’t smokers be charged more? Tobacco use causes a third of the cancer cases in the US, and it’s under the control of the insured.
Whoever could have anticipated…
Why bang your head (Quiet Riot Reference)? Its more like (Scrambles) “I told ya, I told ya”
I said this thing would suck and be of no general benefit to anybody worth celebration of passage.
The “get what we can” crowd largely didn’t get anything and should have said correctly like FDL was saying is trash the whole thing and let the resistors to change SUFFER because Americans LOVE to learn the hard way.
Nothing wrong with charging more, the problem is why are they even involved at all since they are going to charge more on an individual basis instead of being forced to dole out polices on a community rating. Which would mean a massive reduction of profit and less money for executives and shareholders.
Since when did a private for-profit company want a large reduction in profit just to say “We’re doing the right thing”?
This kind of crap is exactly what I was talking about yesterday. These people deal solely with the words, as if the intent of Congress to bar this kind of garbage was utterly irrelevant.
Surely you didn’t expect anything that was going to cost the insurance industry money? They wrote the thing.
I’m quite sure that those insurers that choose not to offer extended coverage will pass on the savings to the parents of those that would have been covered otherwise. Wouldn’t reasonable to think businesses would pocket the cost differential for the lack of coverage on this sort of thing. That’s the way I read capitalism is supposed to work when in the bending the cost scenario.
Thus the myth, put forward by bill supporters, that the bill’s many copious flaws would be fixed or patched over by HHS, can finally be put to rest.
Those same insurers are not required to cover dependents now. By that metric, why do employers offer any coverage at all?
Unsurprised. Well, a number of my Democratic voting pals (educated ones, at that) were all upset with me for dissing Barackstar mainly and sometimes solely and only bc of this purported clause where their young adult kids could get coverage under their plans. That was IT, as far as they were concerned, and they were happy Democrats.
And I said: wait and see, my friend. I hope that I am wrong, but sadly, I doubt that you’ll get this benefit.
Sigh… would that I was wrong. I was having a similar “discussion” with yet another Dem voter pal of mine just today. They keep clinging to the “he’s better than Bush” meme. UGH. When will they ever learn? Prolly too late.
How can they make these statements to the press when the draft rules have not been released for comment?
Indeed, the pre-draft comment period has just closed. I hope some folks commented during this period.
Dependents are spouses and children. Are you thinking this encourages employers to offer insurance only to employees, and drop the spouse & child support?
That would be a huge, 70 year or more, step backwards.
Given the huge cost of childbirth, and spouse having a significant percentage of wives, a huge gain for the insurance companies would be to drop support for birth of a child.
It appears that children, who previously would have been dropped (over 18), will be included in policies, but the premium will be hiked to allow for this extra person.
That could mean about another $100 a month on average, and more for young smokers. This is just another win-win for corporations, and only a fool would think they would continue coverage without bleeding the policyholder more.
Baracken promises and more Rahm for error.
Dude, that’s kind of barbaric. Most toboacco use is a form of self-medication. Tobacco has the unique property of being both an antidepressant and a stimulant, so its effective for alleviating the symptoms of depression, anxiety disorders and ADHD. When smokers give up the habit, the cravings aren’t physical dependence (tobacco has a very short half-life in the human body) but because the underlying mental condition is no longer being treated. Smokers are addicts in precisely the same way that 18th Century Royal Navy sailors were addicted to lime juice. No doubt those scurvy symptoms were just a symptom of their weak moral character.
Not coincidentally, the only prescription drug that shares tobacco’s antidepressant/stimulant effects is Bupropion Hydrochloride. Its marketed as an antismoking aid under the trade name ZYBAN. Of course, you smokers (and I’ve never smoked) get to pay extra for the insurance coverage to pay for for a ZYBAN prescription. Funny how that works out.
http://www.quitsmoking.com/zyban/index.htm
LOL, I’m surprised you’re surprised. That terrible bill is destined to be the Democrats’ bane. More and more stories like this will come out in dribs and drabs and everyone who voted for it will suffer a political death of a thousands cuts. Pragmatically, the American people will not support Health Care Reform for a long time because they’ll be too afraid it will get messed up even further. All they had to do was pass that public option and drug price negotiations and that would have kept the wolves at bay. Instead they decided to invent this terrible Rube Goldberg apparatus to protect insurer profits. They decided to be clever by half and pat themselves on the back instead of just do the simple smart thing. This administration has screwed Democrats for many years to come.
B-b-but, they’ll fix this by 2014!
Of course, by 2014 when this, and the other flaws are not fixed, finding someone who will admit to supporting this bill will be about as easy to find as a self-admitted 2003 Iraq war supporter.