On March 10, CMS released a proposed rule ahead of the Federal Register on Health Insurance Marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act. The rule seeks to limit the Open Enrollment period for all exchanges to November 1 to December 15, require a $5 premium for enrollees who are auto-renewed into a zero-dollar premium plan, remove the option for auto-renews to move from Bronze to Silver plans and eliminate the low-income Special Enrollment Period for incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. The Rule would also reduce the time for action of failure to reconcile from two years to one year, allowing insurers to require payments of past due premiums for prior coverage before new coverage can begin, and remove other insurer payment threshold flexibilities. Several changes would remove previous verification flexibilities to ease the enrollment process and rescind Qualified Health Plan eligibility for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. While Pennsylvanians have benefited from any of these provisions under the Affordable Care Act, Pennie, Pennsylvania’s Health Insurance Exchange Board, is reviewing the proposed changes and will provide a comment letter.
