HHS Will Exercise ‘Discretion’ on McDonald’s Insurance
1st October 2010
Exercising Discretion: Limited-benefit health insurance plans, such as the one offered by McDonald’s, may get some leeway in meeting the health-care overhaul law’s requirement that 80% to 85% of premiums are spent on medical rather than administrative costs, the WSJ reports. The Obama administration says HHS head Kathleen Sebelius will “exercise her discretion” in enforcing the requirement for those “mini-med” plans, which tend to have a higher proportion of administrative costs because of lower claims payments and higher turnover among the hourly employee workforce. Regulatory guidance won’t be out until late in the year.
Translation: Whether or not you have to pay major amounts of money for high-priced health insurance is entirely at the whim of a bureaucracy, and God help you if you piss them off at any point in the procedure. Oh, and did we mention that it certainly wouldn’t hurt to be a major contributor to the President’s party coffers?