The recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services decision to create a broad individual health insurance special enrollment period is a bad sign, a rating analyst says.

Steve Zaharuk, a senior vice president at Moody's, pans the CMS tax season SEP in a new commentary.

CMS, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced Friday that taxpayers who pay a tax penalty for not having adequate health coverage in 2014 can get a SEP that will last from March 15 through April 30. The CMS tax season SEP will apply directly only to consumers who use the HHS-run Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exchanges, but managers of some state-based PPACA exchanges, including Covered California, have announced similar tax season SEPs.

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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.