Feds eye PPACA storm shelter rules

The performance of the risk corridor program could determine whether the PPACA exchanges maintain healthy competition and survive, or whether some exchange players crush the competition, develop monopolies in the exchange market, and smother the exchanges.

In the new final regulations — the same ones that let traditional agents and brokers enroll exchange users through Web brokers’ websites –  CMS officials said they would open the risk corridor program to the non-exchange twin of an exchange plan if the non-exchange plan is different only because of state or federal legal requirements.

CMS is revising a provision in the draft version of the regulations to make it clear non-exchange plans that are slightly different from the exchange plans only because of confusion about what the final exchange rules would also be can participate in the program. 

CMS is not letting a carrier count a plan sold by one subsidiary inside the exchange and an identical plan sold by another subsidiary outside the exchange as the same plan.

See also:

• Feds let agents use Web broker systems
• Maryland eyes PPACA reinsurance program
• 10 things to know about state health insurance exchanges