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The administration is planning a "workaround" for payments, said Daniel Durham, vice president for policy and regulatory affairs at America's Health Insurance Plans.
Health plans will estimate how much they are owed, and submit that estimate to the government. Once the system is built, the government and insurers can reconcile the payments made with the plan data to "true up" payments, he said.
"The intent is to make sure plans get paid on time, which is a good thing," Durham told Reuters.
The fix puts an additional "burden" on insurance companies, already taxed by having to double-check faulty enrollment data from the HealthCare.gov system.
Now, companies need to quickly put together financial management systems to make the payment estimates, so they can be paid beginning in January, he said.
"They have to recognize that plans are already quite stressed and introducing this at the last minute just adds substantial burden for plans to deal with," Durham said.
Paying insurers on time and accurately is critical for the long-term competitiveness of Obamacare marketplaces, said Kevin Lucia, senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute.
"I'm pretty deeply concerned about this," Lucia said at a forum organized by the university and law firm Arent Fox.
Some large insurance carriers could "cushion" delayed payments for a short period of time, said Lucia, a former CMS official. But that's not the case for a group of co-ops and smaller insurance providers.
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Some argument, eh? They also seem to think that obama never said that there would be a savings of "$2,500 per year, per family". Are they playing the "you didn't hear that" game? By jov, they are!
