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The U.S. Department of Labor is part of a three-department Biden administration team that today backed off from the tougher provisions included in draft health insurance regulations released in July.
The final version of the regulations, which is set to appear in the Federal Register April 3, would cap the maximum duration of a short-term health insurance policy from one corporate family to four months.
The final version would also add tougher notice requirements for short-term health insurance policies and “fixed indemnity” health insurance policies, or policies that pay a set amount of cash when people get sick, suffer injuries or go to the hospital.
The departments suggested that they could come back and add tougher regulations later.
But the final regulations would continue to allow the sale of both short-term health insurance and fixed indemnity coverage, would not impose any new marketing rules; and would not change the benefit design or underwriting rules. Healthy clients who want to try to cut premium costs by using short-term health insurance as their main medical coverage could simply line up short-term coverage from a different corporate family every four months.
The fixed indemnity product category includes products that pay fixed amounts when people have health problems.
That category could also include critical illness insurance, cancer insurance and other products that pay benefits when people suffer specified illnesses or injuries, but the regulation-writing team decided to keep that out of the new final regulations.
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Biden Administration Softens Final Health Regulations | ThinkAdvisor
The final version of the regulations, which is set to appear in the Federal Register April 3, would cap the maximum duration of a short-term health insurance policy from one corporate family to four months.
The final version would also add tougher notice requirements for short-term health insurance policies and “fixed indemnity” health insurance policies, or policies that pay a set amount of cash when people get sick, suffer injuries or go to the hospital.
The departments suggested that they could come back and add tougher regulations later.
But the final regulations would continue to allow the sale of both short-term health insurance and fixed indemnity coverage, would not impose any new marketing rules; and would not change the benefit design or underwriting rules. Healthy clients who want to try to cut premium costs by using short-term health insurance as their main medical coverage could simply line up short-term coverage from a different corporate family every four months.
The fixed indemnity product category includes products that pay fixed amounts when people have health problems.
That category could also include critical illness insurance, cancer insurance and other products that pay benefits when people suffer specified illnesses or injuries, but the regulation-writing team decided to keep that out of the new final regulations.
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Biden Administration Softens Final Health Regulations | ThinkAdvisor
