President Trump will release an executive order today that will roll back health insurance rules and requirements, allowing small businesses and potentially consumers to buy “association health plans,” which are cheaper but provide less coverage than health plans under ACA.
According to the administration, this would help people facing soaring premiums. Opponents say that while this might make insurance less expensive for healthy consumers, it will raise prices for people who are sick and will might also lead to insurers abandoning the Obamacare marketplace.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Covered California said it will ask insurers to add surcharges to some policies in 2018, because the Trump administration hasn’t pledged yet to pay certain ACA consumer subsidies. Silver-level health plans will face a total premium jump of about 25 percent.
Guest host Libby Denkmann gets the latest on the new order and its potential ramifications, as well as what this might mean for Covered California.
With guest host Libby Denkmann.
Guest:
Chad Terhune, senior correspondent at California Healthline and Kaiser Health News; he’s been following the story; he tweets