Wednesday, December 14, 2011
More Decisions from State Health Exchange
The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Board continues to make recommendations on key issues that will reshape Maryland’s health insurance market for employers and individuals. At its December 12 meeting the Board made tentative decisions that:
- The individual and small group health insurance markets should not be merged in 2014, to avoid causing additional market instability.
- The maximum employer size for small group insurance should not be expanded from 50 to 100 employees until required by federal law in 2016, in order to avoid market instability and pressure for self-insurance.
- Small employers purchasing health insurance policies through the Exchange should not be required to allow employees to choose from different policy types among multiple carriers.
- The Exchange Board should reevaluate the above issues in 2016 after 2 years of market experience.
- Existing, large 3rd party administrators may be used to support the operations of the Exchange.
- Dental plans that are stand-alone or bundled with other carrier plans should be offered through the Exchange as an optional benefit.
- As the Exchange benefits all Marylanders, the agency should recover its estimated annual administrative costs of $30 – 60 million from a combination of user service fees, broad-based assessments on all health insurance policies in Maryland, and other broad revenue streams.
The Board will meet on December 20th to make final decisions on these study issues before submitting its recommendations to the Governor and General Assembly at the end of next week. See the website of the Exchange for additional materials. For further information contact Ron Wineholt at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .
