51��Ƶ

The Senate Republican plan to use tax legislation to repeal the federal requirement that Americans have health coverage threatens to derail insurance markets in conservative, rural swaths of the country, according to a Los Angeles Times data analysis. That could leave consumers in these regions — including most or all of Alaska, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming, as well as parts of many other states — with either no options for coverage or health plans that are prohibitively expensive. (Levey, 11/27)

Industry groups are gearing up for a final push to repeal or delay taxes in ObamaCare before the end of the year. Stalling the taxes on medical devices and health insurance, which were included in the health law to help pay for its coverage expansion, has been a rare area of some bipartisan cooperation on ObamaCare. There are members of both parties who oppose the taxes and have previously come together to push them off. (Sullivan, 11/26)

Kaiser Health News: Marketplace Confusion Opens Door To Questions About Skinny Plans

Consumers coping with the high cost of health insurance are the target market for new plans claiming to be lower-cost alternatives to the Affordable Care Act that fulfill the law’s requirement for health coverage. But experts and regulators warn consumers to be cautious — and are raising red flags about one set of limited benefit plans marketed to individuals for as little as $93 a month. Offered through brokers and online ads, the plans promise to be an “ACA compliant, affordable, integrated solution that help … individuals avoid the penalties under [the health law].” (Appleby, 11/27)

Just a few decades ago, small businesses in California often banded together to buy health insurance on the premise that a bigger pool of enrollees would get them a better deal. California’s dairy farmers did it; so did car dealers and accountants. But after a string of these “association health plans” went belly up, sometimes in the wake of fraud, state lawmakers passed sweeping changes in the 1990s that consigned them to near extinction. (Bartolone, 11/27)