UNITED HEALTH CARE

Short Term Health Insurance (temporary Health Insurance)

Short Term Health Insurance plans are major medical insurance that provides individual healthcare coverage for a defined period of time, up to 364 days and renewable for up to 36 months in many states.

Short Term Health Insurance plans are more affordable than other forms of major medical health insurance and, depending on your state, can provide coverage for up to 12 months with renewals for up to 36 months.

There are two other big advantages of Short Term Health Insurance over other forms of major medical insurance.

First, you can use your Short Term Health Insurance plan to pay for services from ANY health expert or hospital. Yes, you don’t have to change health experts!

Second, Short Term Health Insurance plans have no open enrollment period restrictions, so you can apply at anytime.

You usually will be notified within minutes if your application is approved, and you can use your coverage as early as the next day!

At Agile Health Insurance, we specialize in affordable Short Term Health Insurance plans, and we are committed to offering consumers flexible choices.

Why consider short-term coverage?

There are currently about 2.2 million people who are caught in the coverage gap in 18 states that have refused to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid (Maine and Virginia will expand Medicaid soon, so their residents are not counted in the estimate of how many people are are in the Medicaid coverage gap). Their household incomes are under the federal poverty level, so paying full price for health insurance is probably a non-starter.

Millions of Americans also have incomes above 400 percent of the poverty level, but not dramatically so. And thanks to the subsidy cliff, they can be facing premiums that are 25 percent – or more – of their income, depending on where they live.

Others are caught by the family glitch, and although their coverage is technically considered “affordable,” that may not actually be the case.

If you’re among these consumers – and you’ve looked at all the on- and off-exchange options for regular health insurance and simply cannot afford them – it’s worth at least weighing the pros and cons of short-term coverage.

And even if you’re planning to buy an ACA-compliant plan during open enrollment, keep in mind that it won’t take effect until January 1. If you buy your plan on November 1, you’ll have to wait two months for it to take effect. If you’ve got coverage already and you’re replacing it with your new plan, your current plan will continue to cover you until the end of the year, assuming you continue to pay your premiums. But if you’re currently uninsured, you’ll have to wait until January 1 to be insured. A short-term plan, on the other hand, can take effect as soon as the day after you buy it. So a short-term plan to cover you for the final couple months of the year might be just what you need in terms of added peace of mind while you wait for your new ACA-compliant plan to take effect at the start of the coming year.

States consider legislation/regulations in 2018 to change the limits that apply to short-term plans

Several states worked in 2018 to restrict the sale of short-term plans, with varying degrees of success:

• California enacted a bill in 2018 (SB910) that will prohibit the sale of short-term plans in the state as of January 1, 2019. The legislation was supported by the California Department of Insurance, and by Kaiser and Blue Shield of California. Anthem Blue Cross, however, opposed the measure.

• Hawaii lawmakers passed HB1520, and Governor Ige signed it into law in July 2018. The legislation prohibits the sale of a short-term plan to anyone who was eligible to purchase a plan in the exchange during the previous calendar year, either during open enrollment or during a special enrollment period. The only people who aren’t eligible to purchase coverage in the exchange are undocumented immigrants, incarcerated individuals, and people who are eligible for no premium Medicare Part A. So HB1520 will essentially eliminate the short-term market in Hawaii, as virtually everyone is eligible to purchase coverage in the exchange in any given calendar year.

• Maryland enacted HB1782 in 2018, which limits short-term plans to three months and prohibits renewal.

• Vermont also enacted legislation to limit short-term plans to three months and prohibit renewal, but Vermont does not currently have any short-term plans for sale.

• Lawmakers in Illinois considered legislation (HB1337 HA1, as amended by the House) to limit short-term plans to three months, and prevent renewals. But that limit was considered politically infeasible, so lawmakers instead focused on HB2624, which passed in the legislature and was sent to the governor in late June. The amended version of HB2624 would have limited short-term plans to durations of less than 181 days and prohibited renewals. An enrollee would not have been allowed to purchase a new short-term plan from the same issuer within 60 days of the termination of a previous short-term plan. But in late August, Governor Rauner vetoed HB2624, so short-term plans in Illinois will be allowed to follow the federal guidelines.

• Washington‘s insurance commissioner, Mike Kriedler, who has called short-term plans “a poor solution for consumers,” announced in March 2018 that his office would begin the process of rule-making to define short-term plans at the state level, in response to the federal government’s proposal to expand the definition of short-term plans. An outline of the proposed regulations was published in June 2018. It was finalized in October 2018, and takes effect in January 2019. The new rules limit short-term plans to three-months, prevent renewal, and prohibit insurers from selling short-term plans to anyone who had already had three months of short-term coverage in the prior 12 months. The new rules also prohibit the sale of short-term plans during open enrollment, if the short-term coverage is to take effect in the coming year (ie, they can’t be sold in direct competition with ACA-compliant plans during open enrollment).

• Delaware and New Mexico are also working on regulations that will limit short-term plans to three-month durations and prohibit renewals.

But other states have worked — unsuccessfully, thus far — to expand access to short-term plans, including:

• Missouri lawmakers considered HB1685 (it passed the House, but not the Senate), which would have defined short-term coverage as a policy with a duration of less than one year. The House passed the bill, but it didn’t reach a full vote on the Senate floor before the session adjourned in mid-May. Missouri regulations currently limit short-term plans to no more than six months in duration.

• In Minnesota, current rules restrict short-term plans to no more than 185 days in duration, and residents are limited to having short-term insurance for no more than 365 days out of a 555-day period. But HF3138 would have redefined a short-term plan as being less than a year in duration and eliminated the 365 out of 555 days cap. The bill passed the House, but did not advance to a vote on the Senate floor.

• In Virginia, lawmakers passed SB844 in 2018, to allow short-term plans to have a term of up to 364 days, assuming the federal regulations were finalized. But Governor Northam vetoed this bill in May 2018, so Virginia will continue to have a six-month limit on short-term plans, even after the federal definition is extended to 364 days.

So states are taking varying approaches on short-term plans, with some clearly wanting to expand access, while others prefer to restrict or eliminate short-term plans in an effort to protect their ACA-compliant markets.

Short-term plans are not considered individual market coverage under federal rules, so they are not subject to the ACA’s regulations. That means there is a long list of things that they can do to make coverage less expensive than regular individual market plans, including the use of medical underwriting (pre-existing conditions aren’t covered, and applicants can be rejected based on their medical history), annual and lifetime benefit caps, and coverage that doesn’t include the ACA’s essential health benefits.

States can require short-term plans to adhere to state regulations that apply to the individual market, and some states have done so.