Do you remember the President while speaking at at Town Hall meeting on August 11, 2009 saying “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan? Also in June of 2012, if you are one of the Americans who have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.
In October of 2013, many Americans began receiving cancellation letters from their insurance carriers stating that their insurance would be cancelled and they can move to a new Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliant plan. Some companies in that letter offered you a new plan at a new premium (many were higher than you had before). Some companies decided they were not playing by the new ACA rules and left the market. Those companies just said sorry, you are terminated and we can no longer help you.
In November of 2013, the President announced that if you had a plan that was cancelled the insurance company could reinstate you if they wanted. Some companies decided, yes we will reinstate, some said no. The carriers that had decided to leave the market, had not filed plans or rates for the next year and most of them were gone. I personally got a cancellation letter. I found a new carrier that was not going to be in the new “healthcare exchange or marketplace” and they were still offering 2013 plans and not cancelling them. I opted to go that route. Last week, I received a letter from them stating I could keep this plan until 2017. I assume at that point it will be cancelled. The plan I got from Golden Rule was about $80 per month more than I was paying and had an $800 per year higher deductible, but that was still better than my previous carrier was offering me.
Fast forward to August 2014. The Affordable Care Act now in full swing and guess what, Humana and Aetna said they would not renew any plan that was written between March 23, 2010 and December 31, 2013. Now in the original law they said anything prior to March 23, 2013 would be grandfathered. Where it got kind of tinted for most, myself included was the plans after March 23rd of that year had to have some additional preventive benefits included, but not all of what the ACA had going into effect on January 1, 2014. What the ACA calls essential benefits. Many of the plans had most of the essential benefits after March 23. My plan for example which was written after that time was a $5200 High Deductible Health Savings Account (HSA). It now had physicals and pap smears and mammograms. It did not have maternity, which the new plans effective January 1, 2014 were required to have. All together what I had was close to perfect for my needs. It was cancelled. Which I guess as far as I can tell was how the law was written. Humana had originally last year said they were going to extend all plans to the end of the year and then cancel them. They then changed everyone’s renewal date to the end of the year and renewed them. This year they will cancel on December 31 of 2014. Last week Aetna announced it will extend all of the polices written between March 23, 2010 and December 31, 2013, to December 31, 2014 and cancel them.
The sad part about this is the people who had insurance prior to the law are being in my opinion penalized as they could not keep what they had. Many of the people who did not have insurance now do and that is great. It just seems unfair for those who played by the rules all of this time.
So I must ask, if everyone knew that you were going to lose your health plan and your doctor, would this law ever have passed?
Eric Wilson
Source: http://isellhealth.com/2014/08/12/aetna-and-humana-cancelling-health-plans-at-the-end-of-the-year/