WASHINGTON BUREAU — A moderate Senate Democrat says he opposes the Affordable Care Act health insurance ownership mandate provision and will try to change it.
The senator, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., talked about the provision here at an event organized by the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), Falls Church, Va.
The mandate is "the biggest sticking point" in the act, Nelson said.
The individual health ownership mandate in the Affordable Care Act is supposed to require many individuals over a certain income level who have no religious objection to owning health coverage to have a minimum level of coverage in 2014 or else pay a penalty.
The Affordable Care Act – the legislative package that includes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) – is coming under attack in court as well as in Congress.
A U.S. District judge in Pensacola, Fla., recently ruled that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress no authority to require U.S. residents to buy insurance.
Nelson said at the NAIFA gathering that he would like to make changes to the Affordable Care Act.
"There's no doubt
there needs to be reform of the reform," Nelson said.
In addition to talking about the individual mandate, Nelson said he would support changing the Affordable Care Act to "ensure the American [insurance] agency system" be retained.
A minimum medical loss ratio (MLR) provision in the Affordable Care Act requires that health insurers spend at least 85% of large group revenue and 80% of individual and small group revenue on health care and quality improvement efforts.
Health insurance agents and brokers have argued that the current MLR formula encourages health insurers to squeeze them out.
Health producers also are asking about the role they will play in 2014 when a new system of individual and small group health insurance distribution exchanges is supposed to start up.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.