Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have helped health insurance agent and broker groups understand how much they appreciate state insurance regulatory oversight.
CMS, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), brought about a wave of producer group reflections on the importance of state insurance regulators in November, when it released "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; HHS Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2017."
In the document, CMS officials proposed a variety of rules and programs related to how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) might apply to the commercial health insurance market, and the PPACA health insurance exchange system, in 2017.
The packet includes proposals for a new family of easy-to-compare standardized option (SO) plans; having the fourth annual PPACA open enrollment period run from Nov. 1, 2016, through Jan. 31, 2017; setting the 2017 out-of-pocket maximum at $7,150 for an individual and $14,300 for a family; requiring navigators to tell consumers about PPACA tax provisions without providing "actual tax assistance or advice"; and creating a new disciplinary process that HealthCare.gov would use to handle allegations of wrongdoing by HealthCare.gov producers.
CMS received more than 500 comments on the packet.
Some of the comments came from producers and producer groups. The list of commenters from the producer community includes Charles Symington Jr., a senior vice president at the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America Inc. (IIABA), which has about 250,000 members; B. Ronnell Nolan, president of Health Agents for America Inc. (HAFA), a new agent group with members in 39 states; and Janet Stokes Trautwein, chief executive officer of the National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU).
NAHU has about 100,000 members, has advised the managers of some of the state-based exchange programs, and runs a training program for would-be HealthCare.gov producers.
For a look at some of what Symington, Nolan and Trautwein said about the proposed 2017 rules, read on.
IIABA
Symington focused mainly on the navigator and HealthCare.gov producer discipline provisions in his letter.
He said the idea that exchange navigators, who are supposed to be independent, non-commissioned ombudsmen, could tell consumers much about PPACA tax implications without "providing actual tax assistance or advice" is "confusing and poorly defined."
Symington blasted a proposal that would let HealthCare.gov shut a producer out of the market for 90 days without also creating a fast, well-defined appeals system, or requiring HealthCare.gov managers to immediately notify the state insurance regulators in charge of overseeing the producer.
The proposal "fails to provide the measure of due process required by the U.S. Constitution," and it ignores the concept that state insurance regulators have been, and continue to be, the primary regulators of the health insurance marketplace, Symington said.
"Insurance regulators have a long and unparalleled record of protecting consumers," Symington said. "IIABA cannot imagine a scenario in which state insurance officials would fail to swiftly address the type of troubling criminal or fraudulent misconduct that is apparently contemplated."
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HAFA
Nolan objected in her letter to the idea that CMS proposed an extensive new section on producer discipline without proposing a comparable section for the exchange program's own representatives.
"Are you aware that marketplace representatives remove agent information from applications, and it happens across the nation?" Nolan asked. "I don't remember seeing threat of penalties or loss of income for the marketplace representatives providing wrong information or removing the agent/broker."
