Department of Health and Human Services Amends "Grandfathered" Regulation

As you may recall, the “grandfathered” rule in health care reform, was designed for individuals to keep their health plan while changes to the insurance market were implemented through newly created health plans.  Health plans that are designated as “grandfathered” must maintain certain characteristics under health care reform to keep that status. The original regulation stated that if employers changed insurers those plans would lose grandfathered status immediately and would have to abide by certain newly created provisions in health care reform. As of November 15th, employers will now be able to change insurance companies and keep their “grandfathered” status as long as the change does not result in a significant increase in cost or a significant decrease in benefits as laid out in the law.  One of the concerns that prompted the change was that the original rule may have given an unfair advantage to insurance companies when negotiating pricing and benefits with employers because of the employers fear of losing “grandfathered” status.
To read more about the amendment go to the Department of Health and Human Services website:  http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/grandfather/factsheet.html