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From the Omaha World Herald today:
WASHINGTON — People who lose health coverage when an insurance co-op goes bust would get a temporary exemption from the federal mandate that they maintain insurance, under legislation advanced Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee.
“People just seeking to do the right thing should not be penalized,” said Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., a member of the committee and the bill’s author.
Smith and his fellow Republicans cast the legislation as a question of basic fairness, while Democrats criticized it for doing nothing to actually provide coverage to those who have lost it.
At issue are the 23 co-ops established under the Affordable Care Act in an effort to stimulate new local competition in an industry where small companies often struggle to break in.
Sixteen of those co-ops have failed. The first to go down in flames was CoOportunity, an Iowa-based co-op that also covered thousands of Nebraskans — many of them Smith’s constituents.
Smith’s proposal would be retroactive to 2014 and would allow anyone who loses coverage because of a co-op failure to go without insurance for the rest of that calendar year without worrying that they will face a tax penalty for not having health insurance.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that Smith’s bill would “cost” about $4 million in uncollected tax penalties, but Democrats said there’s no way to be certain just how many people would be in the position of having to pay the penalty.
They also pointed out that those affected by co-op failures have the option of special enrollment periods — or, if they really can’t find another insurance plan, they can always request a hardship exemption.
Smith’s proposal advanced a day after Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and other GOP senators introduced a bill that would exempt from the insurance mandate Americans who have fewer than two insurer options in the health care law’s marketplaces.
Adrian Smith
WASHINGTON — People who lose health coverage when an insurance co-op goes bust would get a temporary exemption from the federal mandate that they maintain insurance, under legislation advanced Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee.
“People just seeking to do the right thing should not be penalized,” said Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., a member of the committee and the bill’s author.
Smith and his fellow Republicans cast the legislation as a question of basic fairness, while Democrats criticized it for doing nothing to actually provide coverage to those who have lost it.
At issue are the 23 co-ops established under the Affordable Care Act in an effort to stimulate new local competition in an industry where small companies often struggle to break in.
Sixteen of those co-ops have failed. The first to go down in flames was CoOportunity, an Iowa-based co-op that also covered thousands of Nebraskans — many of them Smith’s constituents.
Smith’s proposal would be retroactive to 2014 and would allow anyone who loses coverage because of a co-op failure to go without insurance for the rest of that calendar year without worrying that they will face a tax penalty for not having health insurance.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that Smith’s bill would “cost” about $4 million in uncollected tax penalties, but Democrats said there’s no way to be certain just how many people would be in the position of having to pay the penalty.
They also pointed out that those affected by co-op failures have the option of special enrollment periods — or, if they really can’t find another insurance plan, they can always request a hardship exemption.
Smith’s proposal advanced a day after Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and other GOP senators introduced a bill that would exempt from the insurance mandate Americans who have fewer than two insurer options in the health care law’s marketplaces.
Adrian Smith
