Keep US Covered and National Patient, Provider, and Small Business Groups Call on Biden Administration to Do Away with Junk Insurance and ICHRA Rules
Campaign Urges an End to Trump-Era Health Regulations Harming Working Americans
September 28, 2021
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Keep US Covered and seven advocacy organizations representing patients, health care providers, and small businesses are urging action from the Biden Administration to reverse two regulations put in place under the previous administration that expanded Short-Term Limited Duration Health Insurance (STLDI) and created Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs). In a new letter to the president, the organizations outline how these two policies hurt the quality of health coverage for working Americans, and they call on the administration to follow through on efforts to rein in these Trump-era regulations.
“By prioritizing the reversal of both the STLDI and ICHRA rules, your administration can make meaningful progress to protect workers and small businesses, boost quality of coverage, and restore a degree of fairness in health care. You have the opportunity to install protective guardrails to prevent increasing health disparities that have long existed and were only exacerbated by the pandemic,” the letter reads.
The letter, organized by Keep US Covered, is signed by a broad coalition of voices who fight for access to affordable health care:
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American Nurses Association (new campaign partner)
The groups write about ICHRAs: “Under Trump Administration rules, ICHRAs allow workers to be divided into classes, with some receiving traditional job-based health insurance and others forced to find coverage on their own using a voucher-like instrument for reimbursement. The rule will not effectively protect against using this scheme to put employees with higher health care costs and comorbidities in reimbursement plans, while lower-cost, healthier ones remain in large group plans that typically have more robust coverage.”
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A copy of the full letter can be found here.
On short-term insurance, they note: “The products typically do not protect against pre-existing conditions, have significant limits on the amount and types of care they cover, and can leave low-income Americans facing enormous and unanticipated medical bills. As a result of the new regulations, these short-term ‘junk insurance’ plans are now being marketed as an alternative to comprehensive and ACA-compliant plans, despite being a hollow instrument with limited coverage.”
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To learn more about Keep US Covered and its partners’ work to educate policymakers on ICHRAs, STLDI, and the social determinants of health, visit KeepUSCovered.org or follow the campaign on Twitter and Facebook.