What Caught Our Eye (WCOE), is our week-in-review blog series. “The True Cost of Cheap Health Insurance” — Any day now, the Trump administration is expected to release new regulations to make short-term health-insurance plans last a lot longer. In a fact sheet about the forthcoming changes, the administration said it wants to extend access to the plans—which now expire after three months, and offer too few services to qualify for the [...]

Earlier this week, Iowa passed a law allowing the sale of health plans that are not subject to the important patient protection rules and regulations contained in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The law includes very specific carveout language that basically selects the Iowa Farm Bureau to partner with a designated insurance company (Wellmark) to offer so-called “health benefit plans” with no preexisting condition or essential health benefit protections. [...]

The spending bill, known as the omnibus, passed – but the push for ACA stabilization was not included. Beginning last summer, Senators Alexander and Murray were working on a bipartisan package that would aim to stabilize the ACA through cost-sharing reduction payments, outreach funding and reinsurance funding. In early December, Senator Collins pledged her vote on the Republican tax bill in exchange for ACA stabilization funding. [...]