One new policy would let employers use HRAs to reimburse employees' premiums on the individual health-insurance market up to $1,800. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Health care reform could make or break the midterm elections. Perhaps to distract from the black eye of pre-existing conditions, the Trump administration has announced new changes to the ACA aimed at making the government health regulation more palatable to employers.
According to The Hill, the latest policy emanating from the White House is one that would change how employers offer insurance coverage by ending a prohibition on allowing more companies to provide health reimbursement arrangements—another Obama-era provision.
The new policy would let employers use HRAs to reimburse employees' premiums on the individual health-insurance market up to $1,800, and would apply to small- and medium-sized companies not currently offering health insurance to workers.
In addition, new guidance loosened restrictions on states seeking to waive ACA requirements and put in place “conservative health policies that were previously not allowed under the Obama administration.” While such coverage would have proved inadequate under the ACA, the new guidance allows states to adopt plans with far less comprehensive coverage that would appeal to younger and healthier people—thus creating a “parallel” insurance market that could help to destabilize ACA marketplaces.
The new guidance, the Hill reports, emphasizes “access” to coverage, rather than the level of coverage.
And while the White House is busy issuing new rules, Democrats are asserting that the Trump administration's actions on waivers that allow states to avoid ACA requirements prove that Republicans “do not actually want to protect people with pre-existing conditions,” according to The Hill.
Regulations that make it easier for states to get around ACA requirements guaranteeing coverage for a range of care, as well as policies that allow states to use ACA subsidies to buy short-term policies that provide considerably less coverage or reject people with preexisting conditions, say Democrats, make it easier for states to undermine ACA protections.
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, NY, said in a statement, “Just weeks before the election, Republicans are once again undermining protections for people with preexisting conditions and sabotaging our health care system.” Schumer added, “The American people should look at what Republicans are doing, rather than what they're saying, when it comes to health care.”
Republicans have very recently changed tack to claim that they support preserving care for those with preexisting conditions while still supporting measures to roll back not just ACA rules, but the ACA itself.
Republicans claim that the new rules and guidance just make cheaper coverage available in addition to the more costly ACA-compliant policies.
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
