There is still time for Congress to pick up the pieces to change the health care system to help stabilize it. The fate of the Affordable Care Act has yet to be determined. Meanwhile, people wait while paying extremely high premiums and having mountains of out-of-pocket expenses on their kitchen tables. Where is the affordability of the Affordable Care Act?
Tick tock also for insurance companies. They are under a timeline for performance dates this summer. Insurance companies have time to decide if they will continue to offer ACA plans or not. By withdrawing the ACA plans, things will begin to go back to before the law was signed. This time capsule can be good for many.
Insurance companies can start evaluating health conditions. Don’t panic yet! Years ago, the only problem with pre-existing conditions was not “if” an insurance company would accept it, but which one. Each insurance company had personalities for health conditions. Just because someone has been turned down by a reputable insurance company, doesn’t mean you can’t get health insurance from another company. Insurance brokers only had to match the personality to the insurance company. It’s as simple as that.
If nothing happens by the end of March, we could move to more health plan increases in 2019. This is terrible news for people who are about to lose their health insurance due to cost. Not everyone is doing well enough to afford their health insurance without problems, and many more don’t qualify for any government premium subsidy.
The governors of Alaska, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Nevada proposed “A bipartisan plan to improve the performance of our nation’s health care system.” Assemble a high-level overview of what some changes should occur. It doesn’t get specific enough to make a difference. Maybe it’s too soon at this point. However, policyholders need some answers, and hard proof that something will change for their benefit.
A class action of 20 US states recently sued the federal government alleging that the law was no longer constitutional after the repeal of the individual mandate beginning in 2019. Individuals and families who do not have ACA-compliant coverage will no longer be fined a tax penalty in 2019. The individual mandate was the rule the Supreme Court found in 2012 saying it was constitutional as a tax penalty.
The future of the law and health plans are yet to be determined. Since 2014, it seems like most policies change every year. Every year the premiums go up and the policies cover less. At what point is the breaking point? With this race against time, we will have to wait for the clock to stop to find out if real change is coming.