Why you can’t keep your health plan even if you like what you have?

2013

The simple, and a bit sarcastic, reason is that the Obama Administration doesn’t trust you to make good decisions. What other reason could there be for not allowing Americans to stay with what they had before March 2010?

Yes, we know; many of the plans in the individual market were woefully inadequate providing only the most catastrophic type of coverage, but many were not like that and have been terminated only because they did not contain all the mandated coverage (essential benefits) required by Obamacare.

If you had a plan that did not cover prescription drugs and you didn’t take any drugs on a routine basis, so what? If you didn’t need maternity care, so what? If you had a catastrophic plan with a very high deductible and we able to assume this risk in return for lower premiums, so what?

What can the “so what” be other than our policy makers believe you are too uninformed and too dumb to know what you had or to decide what you need and don’t need? In other words, playing the same old tune, you are a victim of the insurance companies because they sold you something that did not cover virtually every health care service and required you to pay for a good portion of your own health care. In addition, the unspoken strategy may also have been to persuade more Americans, especially the young and healthy, to enroll in an exchange plan.

Other than special interest do-gooders, what reason could there be for requiring all existing plans, including employer plans, to add more expensive benefits, or to pay 100% for any health care service? Many employer plans are negotiated plans that contain benefits included as part of larger collectively bargained and cost sharing agreements. Most of these plans already include contraceptives under their coverage as an example. A federal mandate to cover this at 100% was unnecessary, it is not an unplanned or unaffordable expense.

In any case, except for enforcing an ideology, the structure of Obamacare in terms of health plan selection is unnecessary. The individual market and the employer group market could have and should have been left alone. With the marketplace plans in place and totally governed by federal rules, anyone not satisfied with his or her individual market health insurance could have enrolled in an exchange plan, just as they can today. Individuals whose primary concern was keeping their own doctor should have had the option of keeping their current plan without change or subject to mandates. Those who wanted to take advantage of tax credits, greater benefits, perhaps lower premiums and generally limited selection of health care providers could enroll through an exchange.

The Obama Administration makes great fanfare about competition among insurance companies in the marketplace, but when it comes to real competition between competing plans (and confidence in the American people to make their own decisions), it slams the door.