On February 23, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its Insurance Standards Bulletin Series, in which it re-extended its transitional policy for non-grandfathered coverage in the small group and individual health insurance markets.
Topics: ACA, health plan benchmarking, UBA Health Plan Survey, Danielle Capilla, Affordable Care Act, grandmothering, transitional relief, transitional health insurance policy
One goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to develop uniformity in coverage to ensure that all medical coverage included certain services. However, two interim regulations were passed, essentially allowing individuals and employers to keep their plans that were not completely ACA-compliant. Those regulations were termed “grandfathering” and “grandmothering.” Grandfathering was available to all employers that wanted to keep the plans they had in place prior to the passage of the ACA. For a plan to maintain grandfathered status, there were significant restrictions to plan design modifications and changes to employee contributions. The reality was that very few employers were able to maintain grandfathered status. In the 2016 UBA Health Plan Survey, only 5.9 percent of plans were still grandfathered.
Topics: ACA, PPACA, UBA Health Plan Survey, transition relief, Affordable Care Act, health insurance cost, Mary Drueke-Collins, grandmothering