The Obama administration has proposed a plan to adjust payments to health insurers to lower their risk under Obamacare, according to Reuters, a result of the administration’s plan to let people keep their current health insurance for up to one additional year.
The health care reform law set up a program for the federal government to make payments to insurers if they end up losing more money than expected on new customers, some of whom may have high medical costs.
The current threshold for those so-called “risk payments” is $60,000 in medical claims per person, at which point the government starts paying 80 percent of the costs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has now proposed lowering it to $45,000.
Insurance companies asked for an adjustment in risk payments after the administration proposed the fix for people whose health plans had been canceled, according to Reuters. They argued that allowing people to keep their current coverage would result in a sicker pool of enrollees on the law’s marketplaces.
There will be a 30-day comment period on the proposal.
