“… As many of you in the audience know, there are countless health care challenges that claim our attention every day: surprise billing, rural health, the uninsured, the sustainability of Medicare and Medicaid, and the list goes on. But a common thread runs through all of them, and that’s the issue of affordability and cost. We all know it… we’ve all felt it… as ordinary people using the health care system…”
“You’ve no doubt heard the critics accuse this Administration of undermining Obamacare. That is nonsense. The truth is, we inherited an individual market in crisis. Premiums had already doubled and even tripled in some states, and issuers were fleeing the market.”
“So we charted a different course. We implemented policies designed to prevent people from waiting until they were sick to enroll by tightening the standards governing open enrollment periods, as well as shortening them – just as we do in Medicare. We gave states more flexibility to innovate on their own to stabilize their markets and approved 12 reinsurance waivers – all of which have driven premiums down…”
“That brings me to one of the main topics of today’s meeting: Health Reimbursement Arrangements. We worked on this exciting policy with our federal partners at the Department of Labor, and Treasury, and I am truly grateful for their vital contributions. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the HRA rule holds the potential to revolutionize the health insurance market. The new HRA rule allows employers to give their employees pre-tax dollars to purchase an individual health insurance plan that the employee chooses, owns and controls…” Read the full press release here.
Source: CMS Administrator Seema Verma’s remarks to the Centers for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight’s (CCIIO’s) Industry Day – January 29, 2020. CMS.
