The Covered California board of directors voted today [Thursday] not to allow health insurers to renew canceled policies that don’t meet new standards under the Affordable Care Act.
The decision comes after President Obama’s recent suggestion that insurers be allowed to decide whether they want to extend the policies for a year.
The exchange’s executive director, Peter Lee, raised concerns about pushing back the cancelations for a few months or up to a year.
Lee: “Covered California has spent a lot of time structuring a marketplace that’s best for consumers, standard benefit designs is an example of that, the model contract is an example of that, so if we were to say March 31st is a better idea, we would then need to seek to have mutual agreement between us, and each of 11 health plans to do March 31st.”
Covered California also announced new efforts designed to mitigate confusion caused by insurance market changes. A new consumer hotline will be available on Monday to answer ‘complicated’ consumer questions.
