Sen. Alexander: Humana Announcement Could Leave 40,000 Knoxville Residents with Zero Health Exchange Options for 2018
"Yesterday's news from
Earlier this month, Alexander chaired a hearing on the need to stabilize the individual market and invited Tennessee Insurance Commissioner
Alexander said at the hearing, "We may reach a situation in 2018 where many Americans have a subsidy through the Affordable Care Act to buy insurance in the individual market, but they don't have any insurance to buy. ... Right now in two thirds of our counties we've got only one bus running through town and in 2018 we might have zero. That's the problem to solve."
He continued, "Now, it doesn't make as much a difference to me as to whose fault that is. I can make a pretty good speech about that and you can make a pretty good speech saying why it's not your fault or it is our fault. I think the question the American people want to know, particularly if they're among the 11 million people in the exchanges or the 18 million in the whole individual market, is well: What are you going to do about that?"
Alexander today renewed his call for the
* Continue cost-sharing subsidies to help pay for high deductibles and premium subsidies, for a transitional period;
* Reduce special enrollment periods and verify eligibility for special enrollment periods generally;
* Adjust grace periods so insurance plans are paid for their services;
* Repeal or loosen age-rating restrictions, which limit the difference between premiums insurers can charge young and older people;
* Give states more flexibility to define "Essential Health Benefits"; and
* Allow individuals to use their Obamacare subsidies to purchase plans outside of Obamacare exchanges.
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