Consumer advocate calls health care bill "toothless". Enforcement of insurance reforms in doubt

[Better Believe It]

Even if health bill passes soon, wait for reforms could be long
Major provisions would take effect in 2014; enforcement in doubt
By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
November 30, 2009


Measured against the promises President Obama and congressional Democrats have made about health-care reform, the bill the Senate begins debating this week could be setting Americans up for disappointment: Some of the main reforms would not take place for several years, and even when they do, some observers say, the bill does too little to make sure they would be enforced.

Until 2014, insurance companies could continue to deny coverage or charge higher premiums based on people's medical history. Another highly touted reform -- banning annual and lifetime limits on coverage -- would take effect in 2010, but it would permit significant exceptions.

Even with those rules in place, "there's no power to really hold the insurance companies accountable," said consumer advocate Betty Ahrens, executive director of the Iowa Citizen Action Network. "It's toothless."

The bill would offer interim relief for some people with preexisting conditions by creating a temporary insurance plan just for them, but only people who have been uninsured for six months could join.

White House health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle said the president was moving as quickly as possible. She said that the insurance industry cannot be forced to accept people irrespective of preexisting conditions until everyone is required to have insurance, and that the administration does not want such a requirement until the exchanges are up and running.

.... enforcement of the bill's new federal insurance rules would generally be the responsibility of state regulators. With some exceptions, the federal government would step in to police private insurers only if it determined a state was not doing the job.

"Unless an administration is in place in 2014 that is deeply committed to pushing recalcitrant states aside and taking direct action, it is likely that the reforms may never be implemented adequately throughout the country," Jost wrote in a recent blog post.

Read the full article at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/29/AR2009112902425.html