An Idaho insurer is moving full steam ahead on a plan to sell insurance policies that do not comply with the requirements set out in the Affordable Care Act. Idaho went rogue last month, with Republican Gov. Butch Otter signing an executive order, in direct conflict with federal law, allowing Idaho insurers to sell policies that aren't compliant with the law. Those plans will cut at the heart of the consumer protections in the law—they would have annual and lifetime caps, they would allow insurers to sell junk policies and discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions by charging them more or denying them policies. In other words, back to pre-Obamacare days in Idaho.
Trump's new Secretary for Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, has repeatedly insisted that he will uphold the law of the land, but he continues to refuse to say how the administration will respond to Idaho.
Azar did not budge last week in his first meeting with reporters. "I just don't believe in premature opinions on complex, important topics—serious, weighty matters," he said. "Let's see where the state of Idaho ends up."
Nor would HHS elaborate on a conversation Azar had with Otter over the weekend while speaking at a gathering of governors in Washington. A department statement said the secretary "expressed sympathy" for challenges the ACA poses.
Azar has adopted his public wait-and-see stance even though Idaho Insurance Director Dean Cameron began conferring with federal officials before the governor's executive order. […]
On Valentine's Day, 15 national groups representing patients with serious diseases wrote Azar, urging him to "address this issue in a timely manner." A quartet of congressional Democrats were more pointed in a letter to him and CMS Administrator Seema Verma. Idaho's rules "eviscerate critical protections that are enshrined in federal law," they wrote, asking the department to explain their legality.
In a three-paragraph reply, Verma told the lawmakers that CMS "does not have any information to share."
Idaho is way ahead of Azar—Blue Cross is already going to hit the market with these plans. Whatever it is he's waiting for has already passed. Which suggests that the Trump administration isn't going to do a thing about this. It's going to be up to the courts.