CCIIO on off-exchange plan sales: "Shrug"

Officials at the Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) say insurers need not sell individual health insurance outside the new public health insurance exchange system.

Insurers that do deign to sell outside the public exchange program, or marketplace, need not do anything special to accommodate the off-exchange coverage buyers, officials say. CCIIO is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agency in charge of HHS efforts to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA).

CCIIO officials talk about PPACA’s “guaranteed availability standards” for individual “qualified health plans” (QHPs) — health plans that comply with the PPACA major medical benefits, underwriting and pricing rules — in a new batch of informal guidance.