Use of Association Health Plans Struck Down

In a win for healthcare consumers, a federal judge in Washington D.C. last week struck down major parts of a Department of Labor regulation that expanded the ability of small employers and sole proprietors to band together to form Association Health Plans (AHPs) to evade key requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Although AHPs are bound by some of the requirements of the ACA, they do not have to provide all of the benefits mandated under the ACA, and they can use factors such as age, gender and occupation to set premiums when other small plans may not do so.  While the Department of Labor touted the regulation as providing a way for small businesses to get more affordable health insurance coverage, critics said that the new regulation was an invitation to fraud, by giving incentives to shady operators to offer cheap plans that are literally too good to be true.  State and federal regulators have regularly tried to clamp down on such fraudulent schemes, which…

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