In the coming days, HHS will announce another change in the health care roll out. This time, they are going to allow carriers to keep and issue policies that do not meet ACA guidelines. This adds to the recent pushback on the employer mandate to 50-100 employee companies AND the lessening of enrollment requirements on larger employers.

The Certainty. 

Groups and individuals that embraced the “early renewals” last December will now have the choice to keep those plans for another year. This will make the late summer and early fall less noisy as many will likely sign back on for another year.

The Uncertainty.

Will new products emerge?  If carriers are allowed to issue policies that do not conform with ACA, will some move to issue less expensive policies or even offer lower rates to underwritten non-ACA plans? Employers and Individuals may buy these plans if they are less costly, even if they may be available only for a year.

Will this push back the “individual mandate?” Since the mandate requires one to have a “compliant plan,” how will the IRS enforce this when HHS allows non-compliant plans to be offered?

ACA’s goal, in large part, is to regulate the market. While this and other adjustments to ACA may make the short term more quiet, it raises questions about how they will enforce the law down the road. At some point HHS is going to have to decide what they are going to stand behind (and enforce) and what they are going to abandon.

As the law gets tweeked, it increases the chances that companies will do whatever makes sense to them and stop focusing on what they need to do in order to follow the law. If employers conclude that the law is a moving target, they may just create their own strategy, their own certainty.