<p>Not unlike life insurance policies advertised that pay out only a small amount. Or homeowners ins with insufficient coverage. </p>
<p>That type of policy existed but it was not anywhere close to the vast majority of cancellations. It was a teeny fraction and not worth all of this attention by a longshot.</p>
<p>Four million mini-meds… all of them cancelled, right? 4.7 million total cancellations. 4/4.7 = .85</p>
<p>85% is a teeny fraction? </p>
<p>CF, no, that is incorrect. If those policies existed before March 2010 they do not need to be cancelled. They would now have unlimited lifetime benefits but could still have annual limits. Also, many of these policies were provided by employers. The 5 million cancelled were in the individual market.</p>
<p>Most of these plans are offered by small businesses to part-time workers. Obviously,. the plan is for them to go away but they are not a big chunk of the current crop of cancellations. Some are grandfathered, some companies got waivers, and some are less than 50 employees. Really, these are the workers that frequently turn down any insurance. Target only had about 10-percent of it’s part-timers accept the policies offered. They were this type of plan.</p>
<p>Thanks, GP. How many of the minimed policies were cancelled?</p>
<p>CF, don’t know but I agree with Flossy that most of these policies were provided by businesses to their part-time workers. I would think very few of the 5 million cancelled in the individual market were these mini policies.</p>
<p>The mini-meds weren’t grandfathered --they didn’t qualify for grandfathering. And even though they were often purchased via employers, they weren’t employer -subsidized – so they would be treated as individual and not group plans. So their cancellations would be counted as individual-market cancellations. </p>
<p>The only ones that weren’t cancelled might have been some that were allowed to continue after the Obama administration granted states and/or insurers permission to extend policies for another year, after the messed up rollout of the healthcare.gov site. </p>
<p>calmom, do you have a citation for your assertion that mini-meds weren’t grandfathered and were all counted as individual plans?</p>
<p><a href=“Get Free Health Insurance Quotes Online Fast - InsuranceQuotes”>http://www.insurancequotes.com/health/mini-med</a></p>
<p>This is from September but it basically explains what they are and what’s happening with them. They are not gone, yet. Some people seem to be confusing them with the so-called junk plans that were cancelled. They are two different things.</p>
<p>The confusion might be that some of these plans are not considered insurance so they have been cancelled. However, they would not be included in the 5 million which were cancelled in the individual market.</p>
<p>Don’t know if this is accurate but found this statement on the web:</p>
<p>“Here’s the loophole. Small businesses with existing mini-medical plans are grandfathered in by the health care reform legislation. The only way they will incur a penalty for substandard coverage is if an employee drops their coverage and goes into one of the insurance exchange pools.”</p>
<p>This came from the HHS website:</p>
<p>“To implement the ban on restrictive annual limits before 2014, most insurance plans began phasing out their annual limits in September 2010. Millions of Americans are now in plans that cannot impose annual limits below $750,000, and that limit will increase in the coming years until 2014 when no annual dollar limits will be permitted for NON-GRANDFATHERED plans. The law also restricts the sale of new plans with low annual limits except under very limited circumstances.”</p>
<p>Right, except they haven’t been cancelled yet because of the delay of the employer mandate and a bunch of screaming from McDonald’s and Home Depot.</p>
<p>GP – look up the requirements for grandfathering – the mini-meds could not possibly have met those requirements, by definition. </p>
<p>Check my prior post. I have edited it.</p>
<p>But, didn’t the administration basically cave on that and agree to allow anything people liked to be kept? So, if the state agreed some mini-meds may have survived that way for now I would think. </p>
<p>I agree Flossy. These mini-med plans were not included in the 5 million individual plans that were cancelled.</p>
<p>You guys are living in a fantasy world. The mini-med had policy limits of $20,000 or below. The minimum that annual limit that a grandfathered plan could have is $750,000. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Where did that 5 mil number come from? </p>
<p>No calmom, grandfathered plans have no limits on annual caps.</p>
<p><a href=“Lifetime & Annual Limits | HHS.gov”>http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/rights/limits/</a></p>