WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is delaying a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that puts a yearly cap on out-of-pocket health care costs for insurance plans. According to the White House, the one-year delay affects only people who get coverage through their employers with separate policies for medical care and prescription drugs. Such individuals were...
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is delaying a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that puts a yearly cap on out-of-pocket health care costs for insurance plans. According to the White House, the one-year delay affects only people who get coverage through their employers with separate policies for medical care and prescription drugs.
Such individuals were supposed to receive a cap on out-of-pocket medical payments of $6,300 total for individual polices, and $12,700 for family policies, starting in January. But the single cap for both medical and prescription plans is being put off one year because insurance companies and employers said they needed more time to comply, according to the White House.
For people who buy insurance through the new government exchanges, the $6,300/$12,700 cap, for all medical care, including drugs, will be in place starting in January as originally called for under the law, White House officials said. So will the cap for people who get coverage through employers under a single combined medical/drug plan.
The marketplaces, or exchanges, are supposed to be up and running Oct. 1. It is billed as an online marketplace where people can compare health policies, and sign up for coverage, along with subsidies available for many low- and moderate-income Americans.
The delay in the cap for people who get coverage from employers and have separate medical and drug policies is in addition to a one-year delay recently announced in the Affordable Care Act's mandate that employers with 50 or more full-time workers provide health coverage, or pay a penalty. Disclosure of the latest delay brought more criticism from Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge.
"The Administration continues to take legally questionable actions to minimize the negative consequences of ObamaCare for those determined to be the 'favored class' by Washington," Cassidy said Wednesday. "The recent decision to delay the health care out-of-pocket requirement mandated by ObamaCare is just another example of that. I voted against ObamaCare because I knew that whenever you take power away from the American people and put it into the hands of Washington bureaucrats, corruption and cronyism follow and the people lose out to special interests."
He again called for repeal of the health care law. House Republicans have voted 40 times to repeal, delay, or impede the health care law.
The White House hit back at GOP critics, saying it's coming from some of the same people threatening to shutdown the government if the Affordable Care Act is not defunded.
"The point is it's a little hard to take their criticism seriously considering their opposition to the law in the first place," Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press briefing in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where the president is vacationing. "I was telling some of my colleagues earlier this is akin to Alex Rodriguez complaining that the drug-testing program that Major League Baseball has in place isn't sufficiently strict."
Earnest said the impact of the delays is being exaggerated by critics. There is only one category of people - those with employer provided coverage with separate drug and medical plans - who will have to wait another year for the $6,300/$12,700 cap to kick in.
"Republicans want to repeal ObamaCare, so they go back to a situation where there's no cap. But because of the Affordable Care Act, because of ObamaCare, on January 1st there will be a cap, and that will be a source of comfort to a lot of Americans who don't have to worry about going bankrupt just because somebody in their family gets sick," Earnest said.