Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Is A Copper Plan On The Way?

By Coleen Elkins

It is anticipated that in some regions health plans will experience double digit rate increases for 2015. So how will the Affordable Care Act react to the increases? Will people drop their benefits because they have become unaffordable?

One health insurance carrier announced of the 700,000 they enrolled during the enrollment period they have lost nearly 200,000. Once the increases are announced in September how many more will just quit paying? Having an alternative to switch them to would be a solution but it would have to be implemented by Congress. There is not enough time to get that accomplished for 2015.

If a Copper plan is put in place it would have a 50 percent cost sharing. It would reduce premiums and lower the governments cost by about 18 percent. It would also reduce revenue which might hurt the Affordable Care Act's financial stability.

The Copper plan would look very much like a current catastrophic plan for those under age 30. Will that be attractive to consumers or will they only be enrolling because they are left with no alternative other than to pay the "penalty"?

Look for the Copper plan to arrive in 2016 pending a vote.


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