Friday, July 13, 2018

Congress Eliminates the Insurer Tax for 2019 but Maryland Adds It Back

Lawmakers pass bill to generate $380 million with a 2019 tax on insurers

In April 2018, Gov. Hogan also signed SB387/HB1782 which will implement a 2.75 percent tax on insurers in the state in 2019. The fee will apply to insurers in all markets (ie, not just the individual market), including Medicaid managed care insurers, and will be used, in part, to provide the state’s portion of the funding for the reinsurance program. The ACA implemented a similar fee at the federal level, although there was a moratorium on the fee in 2017. The fee does apply in 2018, but in January 2018, Congress imposed another moratorium on collection of the fee for 2019. So the idea behind SB387 is to recoup the money that insurers would have otherwise paid if Congress hadn’t suspended the provider fee for 2019.
The measure is expected to generate $380 million ($365 million, according to the state’s draft 1332 waiver) for the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange fund. The money will be used to lower premiums, but it’s only a temporary fix, described as “a Band-Aid” by Senator Thomas Middleton, who sponsored the legislation.
Using the money generated from the insurer fee, the exchange will establish and oversee a “health care access program” that will be “designed to mitigate the impact of high-risk individuals on rates for health benefit plans in the individual market in the state, both inside and outside the exchange.” The money will be used to provide reinsurance and additional premium subsidies, contingent on approval of a 1332 waiver from the federal government.
SB387/HB1782 also limits short-term plans to no more than three months in duration, and prevents them from being renewed at the end of the policy term. The federal government has proposed regulatory reforms that would return to the definition of short-term plans that was used before 2017 (ie, a plan that lasts no more than 364 days). But states can implement more restrictive rules. State-based restrictions on short-term plans will be especially important starting in 2019, when there will no longer be a federal individual mandate penalty for people who rely on short-term insurance.
SB387/HB1782 also places restrictions on association health plans (which the Trump Administration is working to expand), clarifying that association health plans sold in the state will be subject to state regulations.

Source: https://www.healthinsurance.org/maryland-state-health-insurance-exchange/#premiumtax