Surprise! The Washington Post reports today that some insurance companies are exiting certain insurance markets rather than sell products that won’t make any economic sense after the new law kicks in:
Some of the country’s most prominent health insurance companies have decided to stop offering new child-only plans, rather than comply with rules in the new health-care law that will require such plans to start accepting children with preexisting medical conditions after Sept. 23.
The companies will continue to cover children who already have child-only policies. They will also accept children with preexisting conditions in new family policies.
Nonetheless, supporters of the new health-care law complain that the change amounts to an end run around one of the most prized consumer protections.
“We’re just days away from a new era when insurance companies must stop denying coverage to kids just because they are sick, and now some of the biggest changed their minds,” Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, an advocacy group, said in a statement. “[It] is immoral, and to blame their appalling behavior on the new law is patently dishonest.”
Administration officials go on to join in blasting insurers for failing to live up to their promise to “fully comply” with new mandates like these, but it seems that they are complying, just not in the way the Administration envisioned.
Surely, the Administration knows that it can’t force companies to sell products that will lead to their bankruptcy (or that they don’t want to sell for whatever reason, for that matter). Clearly, regulations like this raise the potential exposure a company faces when offering a new policy. Insurers don’t want to go out of business so would rather steer clear of the risk. This makes financial sense. What doesn’t make sense is that policymakers failed to recognize the consequences of these mandates.