As part of their obsessive efforts to undermine the health insurance reforms included in what they derisively billed "Obamacare," House and Senate Republicans (and, of course, Trump) made a big push to expand the usage of "alternative" health insurance plans that do not come with the same protections as Affordable Care Act-compliant versions. Some people want cheaper, non-comprehensive insurance, went the angry claims. If consumers are willing to take on the risk of insurance that may not actually cover what other laws now mandate it cover, then letting them do it is the only proper flag-waving patriotic thing to do.
As predicted, these short-term "alternative" insurance plans have become a haven for fraud and hucksterism, with consumers finding out only after the fact that no, their insurance won't be paying their medical bills after all.
According to the complaint, Health Insurance Innovations participated in a scheme involving Simple Health, another Florida company, whose agents sold them the flimsy coverage. Simple Health was recently shut down by the Federal Trade Commission after regulators accused it of being “a classic bait and switch scheme,” according to court filings.
That's from a Florida lawsuit that plaintiffs hope to turn into a larger class action claim against an "alternative" insurance provider—in this case, one that they claim was working closely with a partner company now shuttered for fraud. It is the precise sort of rampant abuse of customers that the Affordable Care Act intended to shutter with specific mandates of what must be covered by health insurance plans, eliminating a longstanding industry pattern of crafting "junk" insurance plans that cost less than competing plans, but come with sizable restrictions on coverage disclosed only in the fine print of impenetrable walls of text. Didn't read page sixty-two on your way to the emergency room, dear customer? Not our problem.
The Republican "plan" was to do precisely this: bring back noncomplaint insurance plans under the veneer of providing "short term" coverage, thus prying more Americans out of Obamacare-compliant plans and weakening the Obamacare-compliant market. If consumers want to "take the risk" of purchasing insurance that is not entirely insurance, Republicans said, let them.
The obvious problem is that many of the Americans being steered into those plans don't know that they're taking that risk, and insurance brokers selling those products have enormous incentive to make sure they don't find out. Republicans knew that. They pushed for the plans anyway.