A bill that has been passed by the Oregon Senate is now waiting for the Oregon House to vote on it. This particular bill would change wording in current insurance regulations so that they fit better with the Affordable Care Act. If this bill is passed into law, it would enhance the protections that consumers in Oregon currently have.
The bill is called Senate Bill 89. The purpose of the bill is to make the laws and regulations that pertain to health insurance in Oregon to be more consistent with the federal regulations and laws that involve the same type of insurance. Senior policy analyst with the Insurance Division in Oregon, Anthony Beherens, says that passing Senate Bill 89 “is in the best interest of consumers and businesses”.
The Affordable Care Act, which has been around for over a year now, introduced several new laws that regulate what health insurance companies are allowed to do, and what they are prohibited from doing. These laws provided Americans, from all 50 states, consumer protections that did not previously exist when it comes to health insurance. However, those would be federal laws, and states are allowed to make their own laws about a wide variety of things, including health insurance.
If Senate Bill 89 is passed, it will provide consumers in Oregon many protections that they are not getting right now. It would require insurance companies to cover preventative services for their customers without charging them for a co-pay, co-insurance, or as part of their deductible.
It would prevent insurance companies that sell individual health insurance plans from from denying coverage of children because those children have pre-existing health conditions. It would also prohibit insurance companies from imposing a lifetime limit on the dollar amount of benefits that they will pay for the health and medical care that a customer requires. Another requirement for insurance companies in Oregon is to include coverage for children who are between the ages of 18 and 26 on their parent’s health insurance policy. All of these protections are part of the Affordable Care Act.
Other changes prohibit insurance companies from canceling, or choosing not to renew, a person’s health insurance. The exception, of course, would be if there was proof that the person had committed fraud. Fraud is being defined as “intentional misrepresentation of material fact”.
If an insurance company concludes that a customer committed fraud, and decides to cancel that person’s health insurance, the insurance company will be required to inform the Department of Consumer and Business Services, so that they can track rescissions. The insurance company also has to give their customer 30 days of notice before their coverage is cancelled.
Before Senate Bill 89 can become law, it must also be passed by the Oregon House. There is potential for Oregon to make these laws about health insurance and have a situation where the Affordable Care Act could be overturned at the federal level. If so, it is predicted that the new insurance provisions would still stand in Oregon, because they are good for consumers.
Image by Glen Bledsoe on Flickr