Baldwin Resolution Would Expose Sick Patients to Higher Premiums, Cancelled Coverage, Denied Care

The Senate appears poised to vote soon on a Congressional Review Act resolution sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) that would rescind the Trump administration’s final rule on “short-term limited duration insurance.” Nearly every Senate Democrat has cosponsored the Baldwin resolution because they believe it would protect consumers. It would do exactly the opposite. 

The Baldwin resolution…

• …would increase the number of uninsured. Various scholars have estimated that by making health insurance more affordable, the Trump short-term plans rule would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by up to 2 million. The Baldwin resolution would rescind that rule, thereby denying health insurance to up to 2 million Americans.
• …would reduce protections for the sick. The Baldwin resolution would reduce consumer protections in short-term plans and expose sick patients to higher premiums, denied coverage, bankruptcy, and denied care. It would revert to the Obama administration’s 2016 short-term plans rule, which limited short-term plans to 3 months and banned renewals. As state insurance regulators noted at the time, “[There are] no data to support the premise that a three-month limit would protect consumers or markets. In fact, state regulators believe the arbitrary limit proposed in the rule could harm some consumers. For example, if an individual misses the [ACA] open-enrollment period and applies for short-term, limited duration coverage in February, a 3-month policy would not provide coverage until the next policy year (which will start on January 1). The only option would be to buy another short-term policy at the end of the three months, but since the short-term health plans nearly always exclude pre-existing conditions, if the person develops a new condition while covered under the first policy, the condition would be denied as a preexisting condition under the next short-term policy.” The Trump rule allows consumers to purchase coverage that lasts until the next ObamaCare open-enrollment period. The Baldwin resolution would result in that patient being re-underwritten and denied coverage and care for up to nine months.
• …would not reduce ObamaCare premiums and could increase them. The Trump rule allows consumers to couple short-term plans with standalone renewal guarantees, which allow enrollees who develop expensive illnesses to keep paying healthy-person premiums. Since it gives expensive patients a lower-cost alternative to ObamaCare coverage, the Trump rule can reduce ObamaCare premiums by keeping expensive patients out of those risk pools. In contrast, the Baldwin resolution would force those expensive patients into ObamaCare plans, increasing the cost of ObamaCare coverage to both enrollees and taxpayers. In 2016, state insurance commissioners again explained the fundamental flaw of Baldwin’s approach: “If the concern is that healthy individuals will stay out of the general pool by buying short-term, limited duration coverage, there is nothing in this proposal that would stop that. If consumers are healthy they can continue buying a new policy every three months. Only those who become unhealthy will be unable to afford [short-term plans], and that is not good for the [ACA] risk pools in the long run.”
• …would make short-term plans less comprehensive. The Baldwin resolution would not protect consumers from inadequate coverage. It would re-create the bad old days when excessive regulation blocked consumers from purchasing more-comprehensive short-term plans. The Congressional Budget Office writes that under the Trump rule only “a small percentage of [short-term] plans would resemble current STLDI plans, which do not meet CBO’s definition of health insurance coverage.” Instead, most short-term plans would “resemble[e] nongroup insurance products sold before the implementation of the Affordable Care Act” that offer “financial protection against high-cost, low-probability medical events.” In other words, the Trump rule allows the sort of health plans consumers want. The Baldwin resolution would make those products disappear again.
• …would gut conscience protections. The Trump rule protects conscience rights by improving the market for short-term plans, which are exempt from ObamaCare’s contraceptives mandate. The Baldwin resolution would strip away those conscience protections.
• …would not protect people with preexisting conditions. The Washington Post’s Paige Winfield Cunningham reports it “doesn’t exactly make sense” for Democrats to claim that restricting short-term plans helps patients with preexisting conditions. “Even with the expansion of these short-term plans, the marketplace plans guaranteeing preexisting protections will still be available to those who need them… So expanding the availability of short-term plans…doesn’t mean people with preexisting conditions would lose access to crucial coverage protections.”
• …is pure symbolism. The Baldwin resolution has zero chance of becoming law. To rescind a final agency rule, Congressional Review Act resolutions must pass both chambers of Congress and receive the president’s signature. The House is unlikely to pass the Baldwin resolution. Even if it did, there is zero chance President Trump would sign a resolution nullifying a rule he himself asked his administration to produce.
• …is terrible politics. Or at least it could be, if opponents expose it as subjecting patients with expensive illnesses to higher premiums, cancelled coverage, medical bankruptcy, and denied care—all to serve supporters’ ideological goal of destroying a free-market alternative to ObamaCare.