A Department of Health and Human Services official confirmed the change to Fox News. The decision does not affect those trying to enroll this year, despite the myriad problems with the launch of the law and HealthCare.gov. Rather, it affects those who will sign up late next year for 2015 coverage.This is significant because the cost of plans offered by insurers next year will be adjusted based on the results of this year enrollment period. Based on the fact that so far the rate of the young healthy people signing up for Obamcare is low the costs of plans is sure to skyrocket.
The administration will allow consumers to start signing up on Nov. 15, 2014, as opposed to Oct. 15. Enrollment will last until Jan. 15, 2015, instead of Dec. 7.
An HHS official told Fox News the move will give insurers "the benefit of more time to evaluate their experiences during the 2014 plan year" and let them take into account late-filing customers when setting their 2015 rates.
The official added: "This change is good news for consumers, who will have more time to learn about plans before enrolling and an open enrollment period that's a week longer."
“The death of this law would be for health insurance companies to price policies for 2015 in a way that premiums skyrocket,” said Gupte, who is based in New York, in a telephone interview. “At that point, it’s a death spiral and it’s over. So he needs to do something.”More serious to the plans popularity is the fact that it is projected that as many as 100 million people may lose their employer-based insurance when the employer mandate kicks in. Just as the people who had private plans found out about their cancellations at the start of this year's enrollment period, the people on employer plans will find out about their cancellations at the beginning of next year's period.
Today's move is nothing but a blatant campaign gift for Congressional Democrats.
No comments:
Post a Comment