The actions are part of President Biden’s “Bidenomics” push and aim to protect Americans from scam insurance plans and junk fees.
In a fact sheet, the White House outlined its plans for these junk plans, surprise medical bills, and excess costs that lead to medical debt.
New proposed rule to address junk plans
The proposed rule would close loopholes that the Trump administration pushed to allow companies to offer short-term, limited-duration plans, commonly known as junk plans or skinny plans because they fail to offer comprehensive health care coverage. These plans are not subject to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) protections and often don’t cover pre-existing conditions and provide little or no coverage. These plans often don’t cover essential benefits like prescription drugs and may impose annual lifetime dollar limits on services. The proposed rule would amend the federal definition of these short-term plans to ensure they are only used to fill temporary gaps in comprehensive coverage. And it would require companies to explain the differences between these products and comprehensive coverage, including what is covered and how much is covered.
Guidance to address surprise medical billing
The administration also intends to release new guidance to stop providers from gaming the system by evading the surprise billing rules with creative contractual loopholes that still leave consumers with unexpected costs. These bills often occur for health care that consumers thought was in-network care covered by their health plans. These surprise bills can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. The administration has already implemented the No Surprises Act and today issued guidance to end the abuse of in-network designation and unexplained facility fees.
Steps to address unfair medical debt
HHS said it has joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of the Treasury in issuing a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public comment on the prevalence, nature, and impact of medical credit cards and other medical payment products on consumers and on the health care system. The agencies also seek comment on policy options to address practices by financial companies and health care providers offering these products that result in consumers paying excess costs and that drive up medical debt. This is the first-ever collaboration among the three agencies on the needs of health care consumers, according to the HHS announcement.
Lowering the cost of prescription drugs
HHS also will release a new report showing that nearly 19 million seniors will save approximately $400 per year on prescription drug costs when the $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug spending cap from the Inflation Reduction Act – President Biden’s historic lower cost prescription drug law–goes into effect in 2025.
Click here for more information about the plans.