The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
New health insurance rule tied to Trump campaign vow
Striving to fulfill a campaign promise, the Trump administration on Thursday proposed regulations to facilitate the interstate sale of health insurance policies that cost less but may not cover as much.
The complex proposal from the Labor Department aims to deliver on President Donald Trump’s long-standing pledge to increase competition and lower costs by promoting the sale of health plans across state lines. Yet its success depends on the actions of insurers, state consumer protection regulators, plan sponsors and customers themselves. Some already have concerns.
Frustrated in its efforts to repeal the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, the administration is pursuing regulations to change the insurance marketplace.
The new rule would make it easier for groups, or associations, to sponsor health plans that don’t have to meet all consumer protection and benefit requirements of the Obama law. Those requirements improve coverage, but also raise premiums.
Because health insurance, like real estate, reflects wide variation in local prices, it’s not immediately clear whether an insurer could charge Texas premiums for policies sold to people in Manhattan.
Insurance industry groups are skeptical of Trump’s idea. Patient groups are concerned about losing protections. Some state regulators object to federal interference. Some experts foresee potential legal challenges.
In a recent interview, Trump predicted that insurance markets would be transformed by the combination of this expected proposal, often referred to as “association health plans,” and the GOP’s recent repeal of the health law’s requirement that most people get health insurance or risk fines.
“So now I have associations,” Trump told The New York Times last week. “I have private insurance companies coming and will sell private health care plans to people through associations. That’s gonna be millions and millions of people. People have no idea how big that is. And by the way, and for that, we’ve ended ‘across state lines.’ So we have competition.”
Trump appeared to be referring to current obstacles that deter a health insurance company in one state from marketing to individual customers in another state. Some of those barriers have to do with state regulations that differ in the kinds of benefits that insurers must cover.