Don’t Like Your Plan? You May Have to Keep It

The President said “if you like your health plan, then you can keep it.”  We heard it over and over during the health reform debate.  More recently we’ve heard it over and over again, only now it’s to point out the inaccuracy of that statement. 

Millions of individual policies are set to terminate on January 1^st because they do not meet the new requirements established by the Affordable Care Act.  Millions more face the same as small businesses also learn their policies are no longer available.  We all now know the statement was false.  You really can’t keep your health plan if you like it. 

What we also now know is that millions and millions of people are forced to select new plans, not to mention the millions of uninsured the ACA is supposed to newly enroll.  Additionally, higher costs associated with the newly qualified small business plans will shift a large percentage of small business policies to the individual market over as we proceed through 2014. 

All of these members will select a new plan.  And many will select plans they don’t like.  Some will make hasty decisions due to the shortened open enrollment window created by the website difficulties.  Many won’t understand the meaning of higher deductibles and other out of pocket expenses.  Many won’t realize their access to doctors may be limited.  Many will find higher pharmacy costs.   

So that begs the question.  What if you don’t like your plan?  The ACA creates an annual open enrollment for individual policies beginning in November and ending in December of each year.  Enrollment outside this annual window is not allowed without a qualifying life status change.   This means if you decide that you don’t like your plan, then you’ll just have to keep it, at least until the next open enrollment period.