The government should revise regulations that are supposed to help employers that like their plans keep their plans, according to Rep. Phil Roe.
The government should revise regulations that are supposed to help employers that like their plans keep their plans, according to Rep. Phil Roe.
Roe, R-Tenn., chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee health subcommittee, made that argument today at a hearing on the effects of PPACA on employer-provided health coverage.
PPACA already has started to apply many new rules, such as a ban on lifetime benefits limits and new minimum annual benefits limits, on group health plans, and the law is applying other rules, such as new benefits determination review rules, both group and individual plans.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Labor Department have worked to develop regulations meant to free plans and policies that stay more or less the same from many of the new rules, to help President Obama keep his promise that, “If you like your plan, you will be able to keep it.”
Many had concerns about that promise, and “there was reason for concern,” Roe said.
Roe, a medical doctor, noted that 80% of small group plans and more than 34% of large group plans have lost or soon will lose grandfathered status.
“Today, even a modest change can trigger a loss of a benefit plan’s exempted status,” Roe said. “Employers are faced with an impossible decision: Pay more to keep their current coverage, buy higher-cost insurance that is subject to the law’s new mandates, or drop coverage entirely.”
Plans can make some changes, and even change carriers, but they cannot take steps such as increasing co-payment levels or raising the percentage of the premium paid by enrollees by more than 5 percentage points.