Proposed Federal Changes to Short-Term Health Coverage Leave Regulation to States

By Dania Palanker, Kevin Lucia, Sabrina Corlette and Maanasa Kona

The Trump administration has proposed to reverse federal limitations on short-term insurance, which does not have to comply with Affordable Care Act market rules like preexisting condition protections and coverage of mental health services and other essential benefits. A new proposed rule rescinds Obama-era restrictions limiting contract length to no more than three months, with no renewals. These were put in place to prevent insurers from siphoning off healthy enrollees from the individual marketplace and leaving consumers without affordable comprehensive insurance options.

If these changes are finalized, regulation of short-term policies will be left almost entirely to the states – many of which have few, if any, standards in place. In their latest post for The Commonwealth Fund’s To the Point blog, CHIR experts surveyed 10 states’ (Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oregon, and Pennsylvania) legal authority to regulate these products and interviewed state officials. To read their findings, read the full post here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual blog post authors and do not represent the views of Georgetown University, the Center on Health Insurance Reforms, any organization that the author is affiliated with, or the opinions of any other author who publishes on this blog.