Many people may find that their health plans will be cancelled due to lack of compliance with federal regulations.
After having been given a year in which to find coverage that will comply with the regulations of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the insurance news is looking rocky for up to 250,000 people in Virginia who still have yet to obtain new health plans that will comply with the law.
The affected policyholders were given the chance to renew their old plans late in 2014, but that was a temporary solution.
Despite the fact that the plans did not provide benefits that were up to the standards of the health care reform, there was good insurance news for these consumers, last year, who were given the opportunity to renew their coverage for 2014 to give them more time to shop around and find the plan that they need for 2015. This option will not be provided this year, and when their current plans expire, they will not be given the opportunity to renew them. They will need to purchase new policies that are up to the minimum standards of the ACA.
The notices for this insurance news will be sent out to the policyholders whose plans are going to be cancelled.
These consumers will receive another notification, this year. This time, it will provide them with the option to purchase similar health insurance policies to the ones that they already have, except that the new ones will comply with the federal and state laws.
According to the Virginia Association of Health Plans executive director, Doug Gray, “I don’t call that cancellation — I call that an adjustment to the new law.” These notices were unveiled during a recent meeting of the state’s new legislative commission. This reveal immediately opened up the partisan political debate with regards to the ACA which has been ongoing since its first introduction, and its initial signing in 2010.
This insurance news has been repeating itself since that time and has only become more heated since last October when the marketplaces opened up with such disappointing struggles. The law now states that policies need to include 10 essential benefits and the residents of Virginia will need to replace their older plans with ones that comply with those requirements.