On this version
- Virginia passes seven extra well being reform payments
- Maryland and Colorado legislatures move infertility protection payments
- Indiana will permit Farm Bureau well being plans efficient in 2022
- Maine enacts laws to create a state-run change and impose varied different well being reforms
- Insulin cost-sharing payments handed in Virginia, enacted in West Virginia
Learn the way your state is taking motion to increase entry to well being protection and therapy of COVID-19.
With stay-at-home orders impacting an ever-growing variety of People and hospitals dealing with surging affected person ranges, the COVID-19 pandemic is foremost on everybody’s thoughts.
To that finish, we’ve been usually updating our COVID-19 useful resource web page as states proceed to problem insurance coverage guidelines and steering associated to the pandemic.
However though a lot of the well being coverage focus in current weeks has been on COVID-19, state legislatures have additionally handled a wide range of different well being coverage points. In the intervening time, many states have suspended their legislative periods because of the coronavirus pandemic, however a number of essential items of laws handed in March:
Virginia passes seven extra well being reform payments
Virginia’s legislature handed quite a few payments earlier than adjourning in March, together with a number of associated to well being care:
- SB404 and HB1037 restrict short-term well being plans to 3 month phrases and prohibit their sale through the open enrollment interval for ACA-compliant plans. The laws had initially had a July 2022 efficient date, however that’s been modified to July 2022 within the remaining variations.
- HB795 and SB235 permit self-employed Virginia residents to affix affiliation well being plans, with giant group guidelines if the affiliation has 51 or extra members. However as we’ve famous all through this legislative session, the Virginia Bureau of Insurance coverage has knowledgeable lawmakers that present guidelines don’t permit the federal authorities to waive provisions of ERISA through a 1332 waiver, which is what the state is proposing with this legislation.
- SB95 codifies the ACA’s preventive care necessities into Virginia legislation.
- SB732 and HB1428 get the ball rolling on the creation of a totally state-run change in Virginia, which might be up and working no later than 2023.
However Virginia lawmakers adjourned with out voting on a measure that will have assured at the very least 5 paid sick-leave days for staff at companies with at the very least 15 workers. And lawmakers additionally deserted a invoice that will have helped to forestall slender community well being plans from taking up the benchmark spot and lowering premium subsidies.
The governor has a number of weeks to contemplate the payments that handed throughout this session, and the legislature will reconvene in late April – relying on the scenario with COVID-19 – to contemplate the governor’s response to the payments (ie, some could also be vetoed or returned to the legislature with really useful modifications).
Maryland and Colorado legislatures move infertility protection payments
The legislatures in Colorado and Maryland have each handed laws they had been contemplating this 12 months to enhance protection for infertility therapy.
The payments haven’t but been signed into legislation, however Colorado’s HB1158 would require all state-regulated well being plans to cowl infertility testing and therapy beginning in 2022. Plans must cowl as much as three egg retrievals, plus limitless embryo transfers, and price sharing for fertility-related care couldn’t be larger than price sharing for different medical companies.
Maryland’s SB988 extends the state’s infertility protection mandate to incorporate single girls and reduces the period of time a lady has to attempt to fail to conceive earlier than her well being plan will cowl infertility therapy.
In Mississippi, a invoice requiring state-regulated well being plans to cowl infertility testing and therapy has handed the Home and been despatched to the Senate.
Indiana will permit Farm Bureau well being plans efficient in 2022
Indiana’s governor has signed SB184 into legislation, paving the way in which for the Indiana Farm Bureau to promote medically underwritten well being plans. The plans are anticipated to be modeled on the Farm Bureau plans which have lengthy been bought in Tennessee, and will probably be accessible for buy in late 2022, with protection efficient in 2022.
Along with Tennessee, Iowa and Kansas additionally permit medically underwritten Farm Bureau plans to be bought. These plans are usually inexpensive than ACA-compliant well being plans, however they’re particularly exempt from state insurance coverage laws and don’t present the identical degree of protection as ACA-compliant plans. And since they have a tendency to enchantment to wholesome candidates, there are considerations that they will weaken the ACA-compliant danger pool by attracting wholesome individuals who would in any other case have ACA-compliant protection.
Maine enacts laws to create state-run change, impose varied different well being reforms
Maine enacted LD2007 in March, which requires a wide range of well being reforms. The laws will permit Maine to determine a totally state-run medical insurance change, though the state will proceed to make use of HealthCare.gov all through at the very least 2022.
The laws additionally requires standardized well being plans, protection of some major care with no cost-sharing, and presumably a merged danger pool for the person and small-group markets.
Insulin cost-sharing payments handed in Virginia, enacted in West Virginia
Virginia HB66 handed in March. Assuming it’s signed into legislation, it can cap out-of-pocket insulin prices at $50/month beginning in 2022, for residents with state-regulated medical insurance.
Related laws (HB4543) was signed into legislation in West Virginia in March, though it requires a $100/month cap. The West Virginia Home had handed a model of the invoice that will have imposed a $25/month cap, however the Senate modified it to $100.
Colorado’s insulin cost-sharing cap took impact this 12 months, and Illinois and New Mexico have already enacted laws earlier this 12 months that may cap insulin prices beginning in 2022. A number of different states are additionally engaged on comparable laws.
