The federal government has created a new option for Americans who think President Obama has broken the promise that, "If you like your plan, you can keep it."
The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight is aiming the fix at consumers who will be losing individual health insurance coverage because of a policy cancellation.
CCIIO — the arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in charge of HHS efforts to help roll out the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — says consumers with canceled individual policies can apply for a hardship exemption from the usual PPACA exchange coverage purchase rules.
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Any consumer with the hardship exemption can buy special "catastrophic" policies through a state PPACA exchange. Those people would be exempt from PPACA penalties.
Catastrophic plans offer skimpier coverage than the usual exchange bronze, silver, gold and platinum plans, but they are cheaper. Such plans normally are supposed to be available to consumers who cannot qualify for the new PPACA tax credit subsidy and cannot afford to pay the full price for exchange coverage.
A holder of a canceled individual policy can qualify for the exemption by filling out a hardship exemption form and indicating that any alternatives to the canceled policy other than a catastrophic policy appear to be unaffordable.
Consumers seeking the policy cancellation hardship exemption must provide a cancellation letter or some other evidence that a previous policy was canceled.
The Obama administration has recently announced other PPACA exchange plan timeline changes, such as a decision to postpone the federal exchange enrollment deadline to Dec. 15, then to postpone the deadline to Dec. 23, and then to make Dec. 23 the plan selection deadline and Dec. 31 the payment deadline.
Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, issued a statement objecting to the new change.
On Thursday, the administration said less than a half million people whose health insurance was canceled have not yet found other coverage.
However, officials said that figure could shrink in the coming days. Americans have until Monday to purchase insurance and ensure they have no gap in coverage if their current plans are among those that will be canceled at the end of the month.
The cancellations have become a nagging problem for the White House, compounding the widespread technology failures that marred the rollout of the nation's health care law.
Since the law's passage in 2010, President Obama repeatedly promised that people who liked their insurance would be able to keep it. However, the law set minimum requirements for coverage, meaning people who obtained subpar plans after the law was passed would have to find new coverage.
More than 4 million people have had their plans canceled because their coverage does not meet the new standards. Some of those people are purchasing new plans through their insurance company or the government exchanges.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
