As the debate over amending health insurance market rules continues, proponents of changing the law have proposed reducing the health benefits provided by non-group plans as a potential way to lower premiums in the market. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) prescribes 10 categories of essential health benefits that non-group and small-group policies must cover, and provides in most cases that the scope of these benefits should be similar to those in employer group health plans, which cover most non-elderly Americans. The American Health Care Act (AHCA), which passed the House of Representatives on May 5, would permit states to seek waivers to amend the required benefits if doing so would achieve one of several purposes, including lowering premiums.1 We look below at the benefits covered by non-group plans before the ACA as a possible indication of how states could respond to the waiver authority under the AHCA.
Background
The lack of coverage for benefits such as maternity and mental health care in many nongroup plans, which was a frequent point of criticism when the ACA was debated, was one (but not the only) reason why non-group coverage was less expensive before the ACA was enacted. In the pre-ACA market, certain benefits were excluded to make coverage more affordable and to guard against potential adverse selection by applicants with more predictable, chronic health care needs. Even with the ability to medically screen applicants for non-group policies, some insurers excluded coverage for conditions such as mental health and substance abuse care unless states required that they be covered.
States determined coverage requirements for health insurance policies prior to the ACA. A few states defined a standard benefit package to be offered by insurers in the nongroup market. Most states adopted some mandates to cover or offer specific benefits or benefit categories – such as requirements for policies to cover maternity benefits or mental health treatments. In addition to deciding which categories of benefits must be included or offered, states might also specify a minimum level or scope of coverage; for example, a few states required that mental health benefits have similar cost sharing and limits as other outpatient services (sometimes called parity).
Pre-ACA non-group plans varied considerably in scope and comprehensiveness of coverage, with some plans limiting benefit categories or putting caps on benefits, while others offered more comprehensive options. For example, some plans did not cover prescriptions, others covered only generic medications or covered a broader range of medications subject to an annual cap, while still others covered a more complete range of medications. This diversity was possible because insurers generally were able to decline applicants with pre-existing conditions, and could require their existing customers to pass screening if they wanted to upgrade to more comprehensive benefits. This prevented applicants from selecting the level of coverage they wanted based on their known health conditions, but also prevented many people from being able to obtain non-group coverage at all.
To look more closely at the benefits provided in pre-ACA non-group plans, we analyzed data submitted by insurers for display on HealthCare.gov for the last quarter of 2013. Beginning in 2010, insurers submitted information about their non-group plans to be displayed on HealthCare.gov; the data includes information on benefits, coverage levels for each benefit, benefit limits, premiums and cost sharing parameters, and enrollment. We focus here on the benefits and benefit limits. We use data from 2013 because it is the most current year prior to when the ACA’s major insurance market changes went into effect, provides more benefit categories than some earlier years, and has more information about benefit limits for each category. We note, however, that the ACA prohibition on annual dollar limits took effect shortly after enactment and was phased in between 2010 and 2013, so these types of limits would likely not be reflected often in data we received. This means that our analysis likely misses some of the limits (for example, dollar limits on prescriptions) that existed in nongroup policies before the ACA was enacted. We limit the analysis to plans where insurers report enrollment in the product upon which the plan is based. Our methods are described in more detail in the appendix.
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