Jakarta Globe - Bloomberg, Nov 23, 2014
Obamacare customers who choose to re-enroll in insurance plans would automatically default to cheaper coverage during sign-up periods, protecting them from price increases, under rules proposed by the US government.
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| US President Barack Obama. (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb) |
Obamacare customers who choose to re-enroll in insurance plans would automatically default to cheaper coverage during sign-up periods, protecting them from price increases, under rules proposed by the US government.
The rules,
which would not apply until the 2016 benefit year, were released on Friday by
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The changes, which also include
requirements for insurers on the transparency of their rate increases, are open
to public comment.
Changing
the way open enrollment works may help the Obama administration address one of
the quirks of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
On Dec. 15,
consumers who are already insured through the government marketplace will
automatically be enrolled again in their current plan, even if their insurer
has raised prices on premiums.
That means
customers who are not aware they should be shopping around will be getting
higher bills in January than they expect, though they can still change to
lower-priced plans through Feb. 15.
There were
about 6.7 million people covered through Obamacare insurance plans through Oct.
15, and the administration has been urging them to check whether their premiums
are rising.
“Because
premiums may change significantly from one year to the next, the plans that are
most competitively priced in one year may not continue to be the most
competitively priced in subsequent years,” the agency, which oversees the
federal health insurance exchange, said in its proposal.
“Because we
believe that many consumers place a high value on low premiums when selecting a
plan, we believe that consumers could benefit from alternative re-enrollment
hierarchies.”
The most
popular plans in the marketplace in 2014 are increasing their premiums by 10
percent on average in 2015, according to Avalere Health, a Washington
consulting firm. In 2014, 28 percent of exchange users chose the lowest-cost
silver- level plan, the firm said. Consumers who shop around during the
enrollment period will probably find a cheaper plan, Avalere said.
While open
enrollment for Obamacare began last weekend without the technical problems that
plagued the federal government’s healthcare.gov site last year, the Affordable
Care Act’s supporters have faced several setbacks.
US Health
Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said this week that her agency made a mistake
when it added dental-plan customers to recent figures on Obamacare enrollment,
drawing criticism from Republicans such as Representative Darrell Issa of
California.
Earlier
this month, Burwell lowered the bar for the administration’s goals, saying the
number of people insured under Obamacare would increase to about 9.1 million
next year.
Bloomberg
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