Health plans given time to meet rules

State lets health plans run through ’18

Arkansans covered by certain health plans not meeting federal requirements got another reprieve on Thursday from having to change plans.

A bulletin by Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr allows coverage under the plans to extend through the end of next year.

An earlier extension, issued last year, had allowed the plans to extend through the end of this year.

The plans were issued by small businesses or purchased by individual consumers after March 23, 2010, when President Barack Obama signed the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but before Jan. 1, 2014, when many of the law’s requirements took effect.

Those requirements include requiring plans to cover a specified set of benefits and to be available to all consumers regardless of their health status. Insurers were also prohibited from setting premiums based on a consumer’s sex or medical history.

The law requires plans renewed after Jan. 1, 2014, to meet the requirements, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services created a “transitional policy” giving states the option of allowing the plans to continue for those who were enrolled as of Oct. 1, 2013.

The federal agency said in February of this year that the transitional policy will be continued at least through the end of 2018.

“The feedback from the industry is that they were supportive of us following the feds on moving the date,” state Insurance Department spokesman Ryan James said Thursday.

The health care law itself also makes an exception for plans issued before March 23, 2010. Those “grandfathered plans” can be renewed indefinitely.

“The feedback from the industry is that they were supportive of us following the feds on moving the date.”

— Ryan James, state Insurance Department spokesman