The Biden administration is curtailing short-term health insurance plans, which it calls “junk insurance” that can leave patients contending with big medical bills.
The rule, which was proposed last summer as part of a series of actions aimed at lowering health care costs, limits the duration of new sales of these controversial plans to three months with the option of renewal for a maximum of four months total, the administration said Thursday.
It also requires that the plans provide consumers with clear explanations of their benefits, which are typically skimpier than Affordable Care Act policies, and inform them of how to find more comprehensive coverage.
The move is the latest effort by President Joe Biden to contrast his approach to health care with that of former President Donald Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Trump extended the duration of short-term health insurance plans during his administration in an effort to weaken the Affordable Care Act.
“These junk insurance plans misled consumers into thinking they are buying real health insurance,” Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy adviser, told reporters. “Then when people need medical care, they found out their plans cap their benefits, that their care is related to a preexisting condition, that their care just isn’t covered at all.”
