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October 25, 2013 at 08:52 AM
A federal agency has completed work on a collection of regulations that could directly affect whether health insurers in the individual and small group markets make money in 2014.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is preparing to publish a Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) “premium stabilization programs and market standards” final rule (CMS-9957-F2) in the Federal Register Oct. 30.
CMS officials report in the preamble that they received just seven public comments on the draft of the regulations that was released in February.
Some sections of the rule deal with matters such as employee counting. CMS said it will stick with a proposal to start by defining a “small employer” as an employer with 2 to 100 employees. Until 2016, a state can set the cut-off at 100.
Officials also dealt with matters such as what happens to a small employer that turns into a large employer during the course of the year. (The small group coverage must be guaranteed renewable, and the employer can keep it.)
The risk program provisions deal with the so-called PPACA “Three R’s:” PPACA temporary reinsurance, temporary risk corridor and permanent risk-adjustment programs. All are meant to protect individual and small-group health insurers against big swings in risk that occur because of PPACA-related market changes.
State and federal risk program managers will use the programs to get cash from carriers with low claims and send the cash to carriers with high claims.
