Labor & Employment Law

Insurers Set to End Sick Kids? Policies

By Mike Hall

This Thursday, Sept. 23, several key components of the health care reform law go into effect, including a ban on denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. But just this week, several large health insurers began an end-run around the law when they announced that rather than cover kids, they?ll get out of the business of selling children?s  policies.

That action, says Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now (HCAN), is ?immoral…appalling…and dishonest.?

We?re just days away from a new era when insurance companies must stop denying coverage to kids just because they are sick, and now some of the biggest changed their minds and decided to refuse to sell child-only coverage. The latest announcement by the insurance companies that they won’t cover kids is immoral, and to blame their appalling behavior on the new law is patently dishonest.

The companies that say they are dropping the child-only policies are WellPoint, Cigna and CoventryOne. They claim the rules regarding children?s pre-existing polices are unclear, even though when those concerns were raised in July, the Obama administration issued guidelines addressing their complaints. The insurers did not raise the issue again until just days before the law is set to go into effect.

In a letter to the Obama administration in March, the industry?s front group, America?s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)  promised to ?fully comply? with the new rules concerning children?s pre-existing conditions. Jessica Santillo, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told the Washington Post:

We expect [insurance companies] to honor that commitment. Insurers shouldn’t break their promise and turn their backs on some of our most vulnerable Americans.

Rome asks, ?If the insurance companies can casually turn their backs on sick children now,?

who will they abandon next? This offensive behavior by the insurance companies is yet another reminder of why the new law is so important and why the Republicans? call for repeal is so misguided.

Other key provisions of the law that go into effect Thursday include:

• Allowing young people to stay on their parents? health insurance plans up to age 26;
• Banning insurance companies from dropping people from coverage when they become sick and need it most; and
• Ending lifetime limits  on coverage.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 21, 2010 (boomark / email).