Republicans Pushing “Inadequate” Junk Health Plans That “Don’t Protect People With Preexisting Conditions”

Junk Insurance Plans GOP Senators Voted to Defend “Do Not Have to Cover [Essential Health Benefits], Can Discriminate Against Those With Preexisting Conditions and Set Caps on How Much They Are Willing to Pay”

The Washington Post reports that consumers looking to buy health insurance are being directed toward brokers selling short-term “junk” insurance plans that need not cover maternity care or prescription drugs and are allowed to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Senate Republicans have voted repeatedly to defend the expansion of these junk plans, which are “so skimpy that they offer no meaningful coverage” and can expose their constituents to “catastrophic costs.”

The report also notes that Republicans’ effort to saddle consumers with junk plans “so skimpy that they offer no meaningful coverage” comes as a ruling looms in the GOP’s toxic lawsuit that could end pre-existing conditions protections altogether. Senate Republicans “sparked” this lawsuit when they used their corporate tax giveaway to repeal the health care law’s coverage requirement.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Washington Post: Critics say ‘junk plans’ are being pushed on ACA exchanges

The Trump administration has encouraged consumers to use private brokers, who often make more money if they sell the less robust plans.

By Yasmeen Abutaleb

November 20, 2019

Key Points:

• The Trump administration is encouraging consumers on the Obamacare individual market to seek help from private brokers, who are permitted to sell short-term health plans that critics deride as “junk” because they don’t protect people with preexisting conditions, or cover costly services such as hospital care, in many cases.

• Consumers looking at their health insurance options on the website for the federal marketplace, called healthcare.gov, may be redirected to other enrollment sites, some of which allow consumers to click a tab entitled “short-term plans” and see a list of those plans, often with significantly cheaper premiums. Short-term plans were once barred from the exchanges because they were considered inadequate coverage and do not meet the insurance requirements laid out under the Affordable Care Act.

• In addition to these efforts, the administration is also seeking to void the law in court, siding with a group of Republican state attorneys general who argue it is unconstitutional since Congress zeroed out the penalty for not having insurance in its 2017 tax overhaul legislation.

• Under the ACA, all health insurance plans have to cover 10 essential health benefits, including maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, emergency room services and mental health. Short-term health plans do not have to cover those services, can discriminate against those with preexisting conditions and set caps on how much they are willing to pay, which is prohibited for Obamacare plans.

• “The whole business model is signing people up for coverage and getting a cut of what they sell, and the place they’re going to make their money is selling these short-term plans,” said Nicholas Bagley, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and proponent of the ACA. Consumers “don’t fully understand the lack of protections if they go over some annual or lifetime [insurance] limit. These plans don’t cover preexisting conditions.”

• “For most of the people buying on the exchanges, this would be worse than what they’ve been buying, especially because the majority of people who buy on exchanges get help with their premiums,” said Allison Hoffman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Read the full story here.

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