The Obama administration will allow insurers to continue offering bare-bones plans, even if they don’t comply with the minimum standards of Obamacare. “CBS This Morning” national correspondent Jan Crawford reports.
The short 18 second, and to the point version:
and
Emanuel: HHS Obamacare Insurance Extension Part of a ‘Political Game’
The Obama administration will let people with health insurance plans that don’t comply with Affordable Care Act standards keep them through October 2017 if their states allow it, officials said Wednesday in announcing a series of final Obamacare rules.
The administration also extended Obamacare’s open enrollment for next year by a month—it now will run from Nov. 15, 2014, until Feb. 15, 2015. And it is giving insurers additional financial help to offset the costs of benefits claims from new ACA enrollees, with the goal of keeping Obamacare premiums “affordable” in coming years, officials said.
New rules also simplified the paperwork that larger employers will have to file when the the mandate obliging them to offer affordable health insurance to workers begins next year.
And the rules gave a financial break to the types of self-insured health plans run by many unions, excluding them for two years from the $63-per-capita “reinsurance contribution” assessed for each enrollee.
The final rules, which officials said are being announced now to give individuals, employers and insurers time to plan for 2015, come weeks before the March 31 deadline for open enrollment in Obamacare plans. So far, about 4 million people have bought private insurance plans sold on government-run exchanges and an unknown number have bought ACA-compliant plans outside the exchanges.
Insurers can extend no-frills plans, but small business owners should be reading up on these topics in the mean time:
Rules for small employer health insurance premium credit
Section 105 HRA plans save tax dollars – $149 for 1-person micro-business owners
Core Documents Adds $99 Section 125 POP Doc