SALON

Monday, Jun 11, 2012 11:45 PM UTC

Big US insurers to keep parts of health care law

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Some of the nation’s biggest health insurers will keep some popular parts of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul even if the law fails to survive Supreme Court scrutiny later this month.

UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna all said Monday that they will continue to cover preventive care such as immunizations and screenings without requiring patients to pay a set fee called a co-payment.

They also said they’d still cover adult children up to age 26 through their parents’ insurance plans. Additionally, they all pledged to continue to offer a simple process for patients who want to appeal when their health insurance claims have been denied.

WellPoint, the nation’s second largest insurer behind UnitedHealth, said it will announce its plans after the Supreme Court’s ruling. The company runs Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in several states.

The announcements come after insurers initially fought to block passage of the overhaul, which aims to provide coverage for millions of uninsured people. Challenges from states and other groups opposed to the law, which was passed in 2010, made their way to the Supreme Court. Justices are expected to rule later this month on whether to uphold the law or strike down parts or all of it.

That major insurers are keeping some of the early provisions of the law underscores the popularity of those requirements. Patients have already gotten used to the benefits, and the insurers have already factored the cost of the provisions into the premiums that customers have to pay for coverage.

Bob Laszewski, a consultant in the insurance industry, said insurers have probably added about 3 percent to a patient’s bill for the early provisions, depending on the type of coverage. As a result, he said it makes sense for insurers to keep the early provisions because if they didn’t, customers probably would expect a corresponding drop in the premiums they have to pay.

“It would probably be more trouble to roll these things back than go ahead with them,” said Laszewski, a former insurance executive. “It just makes common sense to leave these things in there and not take these benefits away since they’re already priced in

UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Humana Inc., the nation’s No. 5 insurer, went further than No. 3 Aetna Inc. by saying they’d keep several early provisions of the law.

Both companies said they won’t impose lifetime dollar limits on how much an insurance policy pays out to cover claims. That helps people fighting cancer and expensive, chronic illnesses. The two insurers also both said they would not pursue rescissions, or the cancellation of a person’s coverage retroactively, except in limited instances such as cases of fraud.

Both companies said in separate statements Monday that they decided to keep the provisions because they make sense. Humana said that its customers should “have the peace of mind” knowing that the company will keep the provisions even if the law isn’t upheld.

“The protections we are voluntarily extending are good for people’s health, promote broader access to quality care and contribute to helping control rising health care costs,” UnitedHealth CEO Stephen J. Hemsley said.

Still, the insurers stopped short of promising to extend an important initial overhaul provision that requires the coverage of children up to age 19 with pre-existing conditions. This gives children with expensive medical conditions a chance to land some sort of insurance coverage on the individual market to help pay bills.

A lone insurer keeping that provision might get overwhelmed with applications from children with expensive medical conditions who want the guarantee of coverage. UnitedHealth said it recognizes the provision’s value, but one company alone cannot extend the provision if the law is struck down.

The provisions that the insurers did keep don’t apply to everyone. UnitedHealth and Humana both say the ones they’re keeping apply largely to customers who have individual policies or small-group health insurance through their employer.

Big employers that pay their own medical claims and then hire an insurer to administer coverage generally make their own decisions on what to cover, and Laszewski, the consultant, expects them to extend some overhaul provisions as well.

More Tom Murphy.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
763 points764 points | 334 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
1315 points1316 points | 465 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
108 points109 points | 34 comments
vote
Watchdogs: ABC “in danger of losing a lot of credibility” on Benghazi saga
39 points40 points | 8 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
20 points21 points | 11 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations