Blue Cross champions the new plans as offering an "attractive" option to the state's 125,000 uninsured who can't get federal subsidies. (Photo: Shutterstock)
A new short-term health care plan offering to be sold by Blue Cross Idaho is touted by the company as providing comprehensive benefits to purchasers who can't afford premiums for an Affordable Care Act plan.
But skeptics doubt that, since, according to Modern Healthcare, the new plans still avoid some ACA consumer protections—which could benefit healthy purchasers at the expense of people who rely on the exchanges for policy purchases.
Blue Cross of Idaho claims that these new so-called "Access" policies will cost up to 40 percent less than ACA-compliant coverage because sicker and riskier purchasers will not only be on the hook for higher premiums, but will also be stuck with a 12-month waiting period for coverage for pre-existing conditions. Both of those conditions are banned for ACA plans.
Although critics deplore short-term plans for their shallowness of coverage, Blue Cross champions the new plans as offering an "attractive" option to the state's 125,000 uninsured who can't get federal subsidies and also can't afford high exchange premiums. The insurer, it adds, expects 35,000 people to enroll in the plans—available starting January 1, 2020—over the next three years.
"We wanted to get something out there that people could actually afford and get back into having their families covered," Peter Sorensen, the insurer's vice president of individual and government markets, is quoted saying.
Idaho has passed legislation that allows such insurers of short-term plans to offer renewable plans that are renewable—but that can charge higher premiums to people with health conditions. Sick people could end up on the hook for maximum out-of-pocket limits of at least $15,000 for a single person and $30,000 for families under the most expensive plan. For ACA plans, on the other hand, the out-of-pocket maximum in 2020 is $8,200 for individuals and $16,400 for families.
"One of the biggest complaints about ACA plans is high deductibles," says Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms, "and so here we have a state that has been a strong opponent of the ACA and their alternative is a plan with a super-high deductible and that doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, and you get charged a higher premium if you have any sort of health issues at all. States' time and energy would have been far better spent trying to do something like reinsurance and looking at ways to improve affordability for everybody."
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
