The North Carolina Farm Bureau wants to sell underwritten health benefit plans next year. The Republican supermajority in the North Carolina state legislature is considering the idea of authorizing “non-profit health benefit plans” that aren’t insurance despite quacking and walking like insurance.
My analysis of the similar plan in Iowa stands:
And if an individual can pass underwriting and does not qualify for significant ACA subsidies, these plans are a good deal as that group of people are mainly looking for hit by a meteor protection. Well subsidized individuals will be indifferent to these plans as the subsidies buys affordable comprehensive insurance on the Exchange. The people in trouble from this scheme will be individuals who either can never pass underwriting or will pass with so many upcharges or restrictions that passing is still pointless. Their options are to either move out of the state or to drop their incomes so that they qualify for ACA subsidies….
But at some point this is fundamentally irrelevant. The upcoming short term limited duration (364 day) plan rule and the association health plan rule will do the same thing. Those two rules will create very large outs in the ACA individual market for people who can pass underwriting. The Farm Bureau wants to underwrite and it won’t be much different except that it will be called a “non-profit health benefits plan” instead of “health insurance”.
Allowing the Farm Bureau to sell these unregulated plans won’t be much more than allowing slightly worsening of morbidity within the ACA QHP risk pool as the damage would have been done already.
rikyrah
Once again, a phucking scam.
Why am I not surprised?
Gex
Why do I suspect all the takers will be gleeful to be out from under the oppressive arm of government regulation…right up until someone’s life depends on a claim that is being rejected and then all of a sudden they will come crying to the government for redress?
gvg
if it’s not insurance, don’t they still have to get insurance? Would doctors and hospital accept payment from this non insurance? when i pick insurance I always check that “my” doctor takes it and also the local hospitals….even when I was young and poor looking for meteor hit insurance.
I am not their intended market, but I wouldn’t have gone with this choice. is their really much of a market?
I guess we need a few big and messy newsworthy scandals to reteach people why regulation is a good thing.
David Anderson
@gvg: It would be using the same contracts as an insurer through an Administrative Services Only (ASO) contract. The Doc/Hospital would see a national brand on the insurer ID card and when calling the provider help-line they would get the same spiel for a Farm Bureau covered patient as they would get from a Duke University or State Employee patient.
jl
” Farm Bureau plans”
Brings back some interesting memories from some gullible oldsters and their friends down on farms around my ancestral stomping grounds.
“I dunno, I thought… well,… they said they was gonna pay… and…. welp… i dunno. I thought i was insured up, but…. Seems like they don’t pay and I can get them to take no more premium money no more.. I… jeesh, I dunno what I’m gonna do”
Arclite
Aren’t there laws against selling insurance that you don’t call “insurance” for the sole purpose of avoiding regulations?