{"id":62114,"date":"2019-03-03T20:56:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T03:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/short-term-health-insurance-may-lose-some-of-its-cost-appeal\/"},"modified":"2019-03-04T03:56:46","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T03:56:46","slug":"short-term-health-insurance-may-lose-some-of-its-cost-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/short-term-health-insurance-may-lose-some-of-its-cost-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-term health insurance may lose some of its cost appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"New
New rules on short-term health insurance could improve the quality of coverage customers receive but could also drive up costs for the plans.<\/span>Colorado Public News file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durangoan Lauri Costello grew frustrated with the for-profit health insurance system and took matters into her own hands: She cobbled together her own health plan using short-term and supplemental insurance coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so upset with the system; I am not willing to play their game,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Costello, a retired physician, spends about $220 a month for short-term medical insurance with a $10,000 deductible. In case of a major accident, she also purchased supplemental insurance through Aflac for $50 per month. Aflac will pay her cash if she gets sick or injured, money she can use to pay her medical insurance deductible or other health expenses.<\/p>\n

\"Costello\"
Costello<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But Costello\u2019s short-term plan doesn\u2019t cover wellness visits to her doctor and other basic coverage. That will change April 1 when new rules aimed at improving the quality of short-term plans will take effect. But the new rules are also expected to dive up costs for people like Costello, who have pieced together their own plans.<\/p>\n

Short-term insurance plans have existed for a long time. They were designed to cover customers who lost a job, recently graduated from college or were otherwise in need of coverage for a limited time.<\/p>\n

The plans recently received more national attention as an alternative to high costs some people pay for insurance through the state health exchanges, such as Connect for Health Colorado.<\/p>\n

The plans made national headlines in August when President Donald Trump\u2019s administration extended the maximum amount<\/a> of time a consumer can have short-term health plans to one year with the option to purchase short-term plans for three years.<\/p>\n

Previously, federal rules limited short-term health insurance coverage to 90 days.<\/p>\n

States can also write their own rules to govern short-term medical plans. In Colorado, consumers can have two six-month-long insurance plans for 12 months in an 18-month period, said Vincent Plymell, assistant commissioner for the Division of Insurance.<\/p>\n

Short-term plans also provide limited coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople should still go into it with eyes wide open and know the limitations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For example, if a patient developed a medical condition while covered by the first short-term plan, the second plan may not cover the condition because it would be considered a pre-existing condition, he said.<\/p>\n

The division does not have data on how many state residents are covered by short-term health insurance, but division staff don\u2019t believe it is a large number, Plymell said.<\/p>\n

The division announced rules in January aimed at requiring better coverage from short-term plans. As of April 1, the plans must cover health benefits such as preventive services, prescription drugs, hospitalization and maternity and newborn care, according a news release from the Division of Insurance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The plans will not be required to cover pre-existing conditions.<\/p>\n

Durango insurance broker Chris Lange said he expected the rules would drive up costs and deter Coloradans from purchasing health insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot more people are going to keep their fingers crossed and hope for the best,\u201d said Lange, owner of Integrity Insurance and Financial Services.<\/p>\n

While Costello is a short-term insurance customer, she said she would like to see health care reform that would provide universal health care coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do health care for profit, you lose equity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

will improve quality of care but could drive up expenses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,21,13,28,1346,1094,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-62114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-health-insurance","tag-insurance","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62114"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=62114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}