Bare Bones Health Plans Expected To Survive Health Law

They are bare-bones health plans, and critics say they could leave consumers who become seriously ill on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in medical costs.

Consumer Reports calls it “junk health insurance.” A California regulator described them as “skeleton policies.” To an expert from the American Cancer Society, they “are a perfect example of why health care reform is so crucial.”

They are bare-bones health plans, and critics say they could leave consumers who become seriously ill on the hook for tens ofthousands of dollars in medical costs. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to do away with them.

“The good news is that these plans will be a thing of the past in 2014,” Steve Larsen, then a high-ranking Department of Health and Human Services official, told reporters two years ago.

The law did outlaw so-called "mini-med" plans, which cap annual benefits at, say, $2,000 even though the average hospital stay costs $14,000. But now a new type of bare-bones policy may take their place.

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Source: Kaiser Health News