From The Foundry at The Heritage Network, originally published in National Review Online: “One excepted benefit that  .. could serve as a lifeboat if the voyage of the SS Obamacare goes as badly as we have feared: indemnity insurance .. anything that constitutes an excepted benefit under HIPAA remains exempt from all of Obamacare’s new insurance regulations.”

Well, not anymore it seems, as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unilaterally decided to amend HIPAA to suit themselves. As usual, the government drops its bad news on Friday evenings when we are all exhausted from working to pay for our health insurance premiums (or not, if you’ve decided to pay the penalty). Go here for the full story.

And this quote is especially telling: “.. this latest proposed Obamacare regulation, like many before it, isn’t even a remotely plausible interpretation of the statutes that Congress actually passed. This latest “fix” is worth fighting — both to keep the lifeboats intact during this dangerous voyage and to keep a sound insurance option in place for the long haul.”

One of the most frequently cited ways that insurers used to reduce costs for the new ACA compliant plans was to engineer new provider networks, primarily HMOs, with lower fee-for-service reimbursements, referred to as  per-member-per-month arrangements. These networks were reviewed at the state level for adequacy. In fact, the new networks were substantially smaller, as many physicians opted out of them due to reduced reimbursement rates or capitation necessitated by the new rules carriers must operate under due to Obamacare.

The federal government decided that this won’t be acceptable for 2015.  In a draft letter from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), insurers will be required to include 30% of “essential community providers” (ESPs) in their network.

ESPs serve primarily “underserved” populations, including community health centers, HIV/AIDS clinics, family planning clinics and children’s hospitals. From Insurance Business: “In order to assure this is the case, CMS plans to establish its own process for certifying adequate provider networks, cutting out the role of state regulators.” See the full story here.

CMS, in 2013, stated that, for 2014, they would “rely on state analyses and recommendations when the state has the authority and means to assess issuer network adequacy.” See the full text of the earlier guidance here. For 2015, with CMS expanding the ESP requirement,this will likely increase premiums further, due to an increase in network providers mandated by CMS.

Other changes that will have a cost effect on premiums include changes to stand-alone dental plans, and a new requirement to pay for a 30-day supply of any new drug that a new customer had been taking—even if the drug would not have ordinarily been covered.  For the complete 2015 guidance, go here.

Insurers are rightfully concerned about the new requirements, with America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) already expressing its disapproval in comments filed on the proposed changes. Insurers have just weeks to present their changes, with some deadlines beginning in April of 2014.

Today, The Wall Street Journal reports on  Obamacare’s secret mandate exemption. An amazing read!

A few choice quotes below:

“last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance ..”

“the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don’t comply ..”

“shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.”

The article concludes: “The larger point is that there have been so many unilateral executive waivers and delays that ObamaCare must be unrecognizable to its drafters, to the extent they ever knew what the law contained.” Indeed.