State insurance regulators have decided to wait for a month or so before deciding whether to endorse a House bill that would exempt agents and brokers from the medical-loss ratio provision, according to The Hill’s Healthwatch.
An NAIC task force was planning to vote on a resolution supporting the legislation during its spring meeting. Instead, the group will research the issue for six weeks, reports the Hartford Courant. The panel wants to know how badly the MLR would affect brokers' commissions.
Sandy Praeger, the Kansas insurance commissioner and the task force chairman, says postponing action was the right thing to do. "We need to base our decisions on appropriate data," she told the National Underwriter. Praeger acted after commissioners from states such as California, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon and Washington expressed concerns about the resolution.
"We must have a very clear understanding of how the resolution would affect the consumer before we can move forward," Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Thomas Leonardi told the Courant. "To date, I have not seen any hard data that shows whether the MLR is the reason the broker commissions have decreased. I do appreciate the value of brokers in the system and fully understand their concerns, but to rush this issue to a vote this weekend would be imprudent and would abandon the NAIC's traditionally deliberate and fact-based approach."
To learn more:
- see The Hill’s Healthwatch story
- check out the National Underwriter piece
- read the Hartford Courant article