Cancelation with a Silver Lining!

Nobody likes negativity, right? But there's been a whole lot of negativity around the ACA lately, now that people better understand that millions are going to be booted from their existing health insurance plans.

My insurer, the possibly-doomed Physicians Plus, has struck upon a clever way to turn that frown upside-down. Rather than just brusquely telling people that their plans are going away, they're offering affected customers an interesting deal: to bump up their current plan's renewal date to December 31, 2013. That way, customers can keep their current coverage through all of 2014, staving off cancelation as long as legally possible.

See, the new wave of ACA requirements (community rating, unlimited expenses, mandatory maternity benefits, all that jazz) kick in for any plan renewing in 2014, but even those plans which don't qualify for grandfathering are allowed to operate for one final year. Meaning that someone like me who would rather not pay for those services can kick the can down the road one more year and see what happens in 2015.

Takeaways:

1. I'm totally doing this. In fact, I cannot think of a single reason not to do this.

2. This is very clever on Physicians Plus's part and I would recommend that people in similar situations contact their insurers and see if they'll go for this maneuver. Try it even if you've received a cancelation notice. What's the worst they can say?

3. This is a pretty clear signal that at least one insurer would prefer to sell their old plans rather than do business under the ACA care guidelines—even though the profit limits have already kicked in. That suggests to me that they expect to lose a lot of business under the 2014 system. (Having seen their 2014 rates, I'm inclined to agree with them...)

4. This also highlights just how many more unreported and unrealized cancelation notices are lurking out there. Not all individual plans renew on January 1st, and insurers are only required to give 90 days notice of termination. People who established their plans in spring, summer, and autumn may not even realize what's coming yet.