Risch joins effort to protect health plans
|
|
November 20, 2013 |
Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Lamar Alexander
(R-Tenn.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Senate
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) today
introduced a bill that would protect the right
of employers to provide insurance to employees
through self-insurance plans.
Today, 100 million Americans receive health
insurance through employers or labor unions that
self-insure, meaning they pay employee health
costs directly.
Many companies that self-insure as a means of
providing insurance also purchase “stop-loss
insurance,” which protects them against an
outsized medical claim that would cause
financial damage. In an effort to force these
businesses to stop self-insuring and push more
Americans into the Obamacare exchanges, the
Obama administration has signaled interest in
ending stop-loss insurance as it exists now.
“President Obama promised the American people
time and time again that if they liked their
current health insurance plan they could keep
it,” said Risch. “That promise was false; the
proposal greatly changes millions of middle
class Americans’ plans. This legislation
preserves small employers’ and individuals’
ability to make their own insurance choices,
allowing them to keep their important stop loss
coverage.”
Alexander, the senior Republican on the Senate
health committee, said: “Any effort by the Obama
administration to change the rules on companies
that self-insure will break the president’s
promise to millions more hardworking Americans.
No matter if they like their employer’s health
care plans, many won’t be able to keep them.”
“For millions of employees in small and
mid-sized businesses, keeping the health
insurance they’re happy with means keeping their
self-insurance health plans. Unfortunately, the
President could end up breaking his promise to
these employees by ending these self-insurance
plans and forcing these employees to find new
ones,” said Rubio. “Small and mid-sized
employers should have the freedom to continue
offering their employees the self-insurance
health plans they are happy with. That’s all
this bill does.”
McConnell said: “Millions of Americans are
living with the consequences of the President’s
broken promises on Obamacare. In their zeal to
defend their failing bureaucracy, the Obama
administration must not break its promises to
the millions of Americans who work at businesses
that self-insure by preventing them from keeping
the coverage they have and like.”
The Self-Insurance Protection Act (SIPA) ensures
that employers are able to continue to provide
quality health benefits to their employees
through self-insured group health plans.
The bill is cosponsored by Senators John Boozman
(R-Ark.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Tom Coburn
(R-Okla.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Crapo
(R-Idaho), and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).
Employers offering health insurance to their
employees are increasingly choosing to
self-insure, meaning they directly pay their
employees’ healthcare costs. This is true for
all types of employers, including corporations,
municipalities, and non-profit organizations.
Sixty one percent of the commercial health
insurance market is self-insured—a figure that
has been growing steadily over three decades.
Self-insurance provides employers with the
flexibility to customize their employee health
benefits to best meet the specific needs of
their workforce. Self-insurance also helps
control costs because employers can more
directly manage benefits such as wellness
programs that save money and make people
healthier.
Stop-loss insurance is a form of financial
reinsurance that protects employers who pay
health care costs directly from large claims
that would cause financial hardship. The Obama
administration has signaled interest in
reclassifying this as health insurance,
requiring it to meet all the requirements of
health insurance policies under federal law, a
move that could eliminate this as a tool for
mitigating employers’ risk. |
|
Questions or comments about this
article?
Click here to e-mail! |
|
|
|
|
