Children can bring energy to a home, great joy — and easy access to individual major medical insurance. Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) explain the practical insurance benefits of adding children to households in a new fact sheet aimed at public exchange "assisters."
New children can help their family members break out of the usual open enrollment period coverage purchase restrictions and buy coverage now, when the exchanges are shutting out most ordinary consumers, officials say.
See also: Health market gets special
CMS — an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — developed the fact sheet for the assisters who help consumers use the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchanges that are run by HHS.
PPACA now forbids issuers of individual major medical insurance from considering personal health information when deciding whether to sell insurance, and it forbids insurers from considering health information other than age and tobacco use when pricing the coverage.
