Oregon, a state that strongly supported President Barack Obama and his health care reform effort, turns out to be a hotbed for small employers intent upon getting around key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
A report funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reveals that thousands of Oregonians have purchased health insurance from brokers through association plans. By claiming their groups meet an ERISA loophole that allows them to ignore certain PPACA requirements, they're receiving lower premiums than they likely would on the open market.
The study was done by the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute. The researchers decided to test to what extent individual business owners and small businesses were able to circumvent PPACA mandates by claiming ERISA-protected status as AHPs. They chose Oregon as a test case because the state has had one of the larger AHP populations in the nation.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
