The Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2010, represents the most significant health care overhaul since Medicaid and Medicare were passed in 1965. Although the law was put into effect with only the best intentions, it has been met with much controversy from political parties, insurance companies, and consumers alike.
The latest flare up in health care: President Obama proposed that consumers could keep their current insurance plans if they would like, but insurers have sent cancellation notices to millions of people in the past few weeks because said policies were not compliant with the new health care requirements.
Obama is now talking policy reversal, urging insurers to renew these older policies (that would’ve been cancelled under the current health care bill) for another year while the government works rest of the kinks out of this new health care bill. White House officials say that each state has populations with unique needs and are leaving it up to the insurance commissioner and health insurance companies to decide which products will be best for customers next year.
It is unclear what insurers will charge for existing policies that are continued through 2014. Because insurance companies thought that some of their existing policies would be cancelled by the end of this year, they did not prepare insurance rates for the existing policies to continue. This change could potentially destabilize the market and increase premiums for consumers. As backlash, some companies are now denouncing the president’s action.
And what’s up with the online exchange?
After the many complications with the federal insurance policy exchange website, the government tried to lower public expectations about how many people would actually sign up during the first month.
The government has only reached 21% (106,185 people) of its 464,902 person goal for the opening month of the online health care exchange. This seeming lack of participation has become a source of political battle for Democrats and Republicans, who are now threatening to introduce legislation to alter the law. Despite the initial low numbers, the Obama administration is optimistic that numbers will continue to increase before reaching the initial enrollment period deadline, March 31, 2014.