About 1.4 Million Americans Have Mini-Med Health Insurance
And that may not change according to a report in Politico:
Skinny plans will have to cover preventive services like vaccines and cancer screenings without any cost-sharing — a requirement of all insurance under the health law. They can’t put a cap on annual benefits, as limited benefit, or mini-med, plans typically do now. But the lack of a cap is largely symbolic because the plans don’t cover the services that run up medical bills…
And those who want more comprehensive coverage can still go to the exchanges, where they may be eligible for subsidies depending on their income.
“That may be a better option for employees who need better coverage,” Stover said. For those employees who do receive subsidies on the exchange, their employers would have to pay a $3,000 penalty, but it’s likely to be a smaller subset of the workforce, Stover said…
A Treasury Department official confirmed that properly designed skinny plans meet the requirements of the health care law.
At one point HHS has to issue waivers for than 3 million people — many of which were covered by mini-meds.
Interesting, why did they give this waiver?
If they could design skinny plans to adapt to the new healthcare regulation, it would possibly have lesserr impact on U.S. businesses and citizens.
Yes, absolutely. it could definitely life the burden off of companies who are really frightened about ACA’s employer mandate.
What do Mini-Med plans cover most of the time?
How did the government come up with the $3,000 figure for the employer mandate penalty?
I figure 3000 is the value of the plan the government thinks they should provide.
Skinny plans instead of catastrophic. That’s silly
That is the result of perverse incentives. Less regulations would be much better
Exactly.^
The employer penalty for not providing insurance is $2,000. The $3,000 penalty if for employers who provide insurance that is not “affordable.”
I like mini-med plans, and if that is all a business can afford then we should accept that.
But we need to supplement mini-med plans with some form of catastrophic Medicare for all.
In other words, some small per cent (under 5%) of persons with mini-med plans will be hospitalized or develop a serious illness.
Let them be covered by Medicare with a $5000 deductible.
This may raise taxes, and that is fine. I know that will bother some readers of this blog, Yet I think it is a better solution than the ACA solution of forcing everyone to have comprehensive insurance.
An extra $30 billion in Medicare spending — which is less than one half of one per cent payroll — would be much cheaper than the taxes and penalties of the ACA.
Bob Hertz, The Health Care Crusade