The U.S.Department of Health and Human Services last week proposed a new rule that would require issuers of health insurance plans to accept different types of payments so that individuals without a bank account will still be able to purchase health insurance once the Affordable Care Act takes effect in January.
The proposed rule would require insurers to accept things like cashier’s checks, money orders and prepaid debit cards.
The federal government’s report comes less than one month after Parsippany-based tax firm Jackson- Hewitt released its own report entitled “Uninsured + Unbanked = Unenrolled: How Health Insurance Companies Could Exclude One in Four Eligible Americans from ACA Health Coverage and What the Federal Government Can Do to Stop It,”
That report found that 27 percent of uninsured Americans, who are eligible for tax credits to help them purchase insurance, do not have a checking account.
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The Affordable Care Act requires everyone to purchase health insurance but Brian Haile, senior vice president for health care policy and a co-author of the report, pointed out it would be impossible for many to do so without access to a bank account.
That now appears to be rectified, he said.
“We at Jackson Hewitt applaud the federal government for taking this important step to ensure that unbanked Americans have full access to the new coverage programs under the Affordable Care Act,” Haile said. “We are particularly impressed at the rate of speed of the federal response: after we issued our report last month explaining that one in four Americans eligible for the new tax credits lose the opportunity to enroll in coverage because they are unbanked, the federal government today released a proposed rule to address this issue. The federal response was appropriate, timely, data-driven and aimed at improving the lives of those Americans that we both serve.”
The Center for Medicare services had previously said that insurers were required to accept payments that were “non-discriminatory,” but it was not entirely clear what meant.
The proposed rule would become final after a public comment period.
Date: June 17, 2013