Insurers Torch New Cruz Provision In TrumpCare: Simply Unworkable
By TIERNEY SNEED Published JULY 15, 2017 9:49 AM
Big players in the insurance industry, which has mostly held back public criticism of the GOP’s Obamacare repeal push, eviscerated a Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)-sponsored provision that was included in the latest version of the Senate legislation.
“It is simply unworkable in any form and would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions, increase premiums and lead to widespread terminations of coverage for people currently enrolled in the individual market,” Blue Cross Blue Shield and America’s Health Insurance Plans said Friday in a rare joint letter to Senate leaders.
The Cruz proposal, known as the “Consumer Freedom Option,” would allow insurers to sell plans that would be free of many Affordable Care Act mandates if they were also selling Obamacare-compliant plans.
Insurers and outside health experts had already been raising their concerns with the idea when it was being discussed in the abstract, warning the it segment the market between healthy people choosing the non-compliant plans and sick people the comprehensive ACA ones. The insurers upped their complaints in the letter Friday.
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