News release: “The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury today issued a new regulation that makes good on President Obama’s promise that Americans who like their health plan can keep it. The new regulation protects the ability of individuals and businesses to keep their current plan while providing important consumer protections that give Americans – rather than insurance companies – control over their own health care. The new regulation also provides stability and flexibility to insurers and businesses that offer health insurance coverage as the nation transitions to a more competitive marketplace in 2014 when businesses and consumers will have more affordable choices through exchanges…While the Affordable Care Act requires all health plans to provide important new benefits to consumers, under the law, plans that existed on March 23, 2010 are exempt from some new requirements. The “grandfather rule” issued today makes it clear that these plans can continue to innovate and contain costs by allowing insurers and employers to make routine changes without losing grandfather status. Plans will lose their “grandfather” status if they choose to significantly cut benefits or increase out-of-pocket spending for consumers – and consumers in plans that make such changes will gain new consumer protections.”

• “Details about what routine changes insurers and employers can make without losing their grandfathered status, and the projected impact on large and small employer plans and the individual plan market can be found here.
• A fact sheet about the regulation can be found here
• You can view the regulation here.”

.