Dive Brief:
- About 900,000 Californians have received cancellation notices for individual policies that don't meet ACA requirements.
- Two people affected by the cancellations are suing Anthem Blue Cross, alleging that the Blue plan pressured them into giving up prior coverage grandfathered in under the ACA.
- Blue Shield of California has agreed to delay cancellations for 115,000 individual policy customers for three months, partly because there's some question if those customers were given fair warnings prior to the cancellation notices went out.
Dive Insight:
Health insurers have always had an ambivalent relationship with individual policies, as it's much easier to spread risk and make money on group policies. Now, they're being given the right -- nay, the obligation -- to cancel bare-bones individual plans. Somehow, I doubt there are many tears in the boardroom over customers lost under the ACA. Now we'll see whether these insurers think they can make money by selling on the exchanges. (My guess is, probably not.)