Association Health Plans: Maintaining State Authority Is Critical to Avoid Fraud, Insolvency, and Market Instability
<p>Earlier this month, the Trump administration issued a proposed regulation to allow individuals and small employers to more easily purchase health insurance across state lines through professional or trade associations. Such association health plans (AHPs) would be treated as large-employer plans under federal law. </p><p>In a new post on <em>To the Point,</em> Kevin Lucia and colleagues at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms remind us that, in the past, many of these plans were vehicles for fraud or became insolvent. That’s why maintaining states’ authority to regulate AHPs, they say, will be critical to protecting consumers, providers, and health insurance markets. It’s unclear, however, how far a state could go under the proposed rule without running afoul of federal standards. </p>
<p>“Federal regulators can and should clarify that the broad regulatory and oversight authority that states currently have over AHPs is not preempted at any level,” the authors say. </p>