The US House of Representatives has passed the Self-Insurance Protection Act in a 400 to 16 vote, paving the way for the introduction of legislation that will protect the right of group health plans to provide stop-loss insurance.
The Self-Insurance Protection Act ensures that small- and mid-sized private sector employers, as well as smaller Taft-Hartley plans and public sector entities, are able to continue to provide health benefits to their workers and members through self-insured group health plans.
The bill clarifies existing law to ensure that federal regulators cannot re-define stop-loss insurance as traditional health insurance.
According to the Self-Insurance Institute of America (SIIA), this regulatory threat surfaced during the prior administration.
SIIA suggested “it is important to codify this protection now to head off any similar regulatory threats in the future”.
The Self-Insurance Protection Act still needs to be considered in the Senate before it can be passed to the president to be signed into law.
