The Affordable Care Act gives American families and businesses more control over their health care by providing greater benefits and protections for family members and employees. It also provides the stability, and also the flexibility, that families and businesses need to make the choices that work best for them.
During the health reform debate, President Obama made clear to Americans that “if you like your health plan, you can keep it.” He emphasized that there is nothing in the new law that would force them to change plans or doctors. Today, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury issued a new regulation for health coverage in place on March 23, 2010 that makes good on that promise by:
The rule announced today preserves the ability of the American people to keep their current plan if they like it, while providing new benefits, by minimizing market disruption and putting us on a glide path toward the competitive, patient-centered market of the future. While it requires all health plans to provide important new benefits to consumers, it allows plans that existed on March 23, 2010 to innovate and contain costs by allowing insurers and employers to make routine changes without losing grandfather status. Plans will lose their “grandfather” status if they choose to significantly cut benefits or increase out-of-pocket spending for consumers – and consumers in plans that make such changes will gain new consumer protections.
Most of the 133 million Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance through large employers will maintain the coverage they have today. Large employer-based plans already offer most of the comprehensive benefits and consumer protections that the Affordable Care Act will provide to all Americans this year – such as preventing lifetime limits on coverage – and in the future.
People who work in smaller firms – which change insurers more often due to annual fluctuations in premiums – and people who purchase their own insurance in the individual market– a group that frequently changes coverage – will enjoy all of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act when they choose a new plan. These Americans also will benefit from the new competitive Exchanges that will be established in 2014 to offer individuals and workers in small businesses with greater choice of plans at more affordable rates – the same choice of plans as members of Congress.
All health plans – whether or not they are grandfathered plans – must provide certain benefits to their customers for plan years starting on or after September 23, 2010 including:
For the vast majority of Americans who get their health insurance through employers, additional benefits will be offered, irrespective of whether their plan is grandfathered, including:
Grandfathered health plans will be able to make routine changes to their policies and maintain their status. These routine changes include cost adjustments to keep pace with medical inflation, adding new benefits, making modest adjustments to existing benefits, voluntarily adopting new consumer protections under the new law, or making changes to comply with State or other Federal laws. Premium changes are not taken into account when determining whether or not a plan is grandfathered.
Plans will lose their grandfathered status if they choose to make significant changes that reduce benefits or increase costs to consumers. If a plan loses its grandfathered status, then consumers in these plans will gain additional new benefits including:
Under the Affordable Care Act, these requirements are applicable to all new plans, and existing plans that choose to make the following changes that would cause them to lose their grandfathered status.
Compared to their polices in effect on March 23, 2010, grandfathered plans:
* Previously, one way an employer group health plan could lose its grandfather status was to change issuers--switch from one insurance company to another. The original regulation allowed only self-funded plans to change third-party administrators without necessarily losing their grandfathered plan status. On November 15, the regulation was amended to allow all group health plans to switch insurance companies and shop for the same coverage at a lower cost while maintaining their grandfathered status, as long as the structure of the coverage doesn’t violate one of the other rules for maintaining grandfathered plan status.
To prevent health plans from using the grandfather rule to avoid providing important consumer protections, the regulation provides for:
Large Employer Plans
The 133 million Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance through large employers (100 or more workers) —who make up the vast majority of those with private health insurance today—will not see major changes to their coverage as a result of this regulation. This regulation affirms that most of these plans will remain grandfathered – more than three-quarters of firms in 2011 – based on the way they changed cost sharing from 2008-2009. Most of these plans already offer the patient protections applied to grandfathered plans such as no pre-existing condition exclusions for children and no rescissions of coverage when a person gets sick. In addition, they are likely to already give their workers and families protections like a choice of OB-GYN and pediatrician and access to emergency rooms in other states without prior authorization. Based on past patterns of behavior, it is expected that large employers will continue to make adjustments to the health plans they offer from year to year so that, by the time the health insurance Exchanges are established in 2014, fewer – but still most – large employer plans will have grandfather status. However, the assumed market changes depend on the choices large employers make in the future.
Small Business Plans
The roughly 43 million people insured through small businesses will likely transition from their current plan to one with the new protections over the next few years. Small plans tend to make substantial changes to cost sharing, employer contributions, and health insurance issuers more frequently than large plans. As such, we estimate that 70% of plans will be grandfathered in the first year, but depending on the choices these employers make, this could drop to about one-third over several years. To help sustain small business coverage, the Affordable Care Act also includes a tax credit for up to 35% of their premium contributions.
Individual Health Market
The 17 million people who are covered in the individual health insurance market, where switching of plans and substantial changes in coverage are common, will receive the new protections of the Affordable Care Act sooner rather than later. Roughly 40 percent to two-thirds of people in individual market policies change plans within a year. Given this “churn,” the transition for the 17 million people in this market will be swift. In the short run, individuals whose plan changes and is no longer grandfathered will gain access to free preventive services, protections against restricted annual limits, and patient protections such as improved access to emergency rooms. These Americans also will benefit from the Health Insurance Exchanges that will be established in 2014 to offer individuals and workers in small businesses a much greater choice of plans at more affordable rates.
People in Special Types of Health Plans
Fully-insured health plans subject to collective bargaining agreements will be able to maintain their grandfathered status until their agreement terminates. After that point, they are subject to the same rules as other health plans; in other words, they will lose their grandfathered status if they make any of the substantial changes described above. Retiree-only and “excepted health plans” such as dental plans, long-term care insurance, or Medigap, are exempt from the Affordable Care Act insurance reforms.
There is considerable uncertainty about what choices employers will make over the next few years as the market prepares for the establishment of the competitive Exchanges and other market reforms such as new consumer protections, middle-class tax credits and other steps to expand affordabilty and choice for millions more Americans. This rule estimates the likely decisions of employers based on assumptions and extrapolations of recent market behavior, including the decisions by employers to change their health plans in 2008 and 2009. The table below depicts the results of this analysis:
Allowable Percent Change in Co-Payments from 2010
Medical inflation* (4%) + 15% = 19%
Medical inflation* (4% 3 = 12%) + 15% = 27%
Deductibles, copayments can increase faster than medical inflation over time