Insurance Commissioners delay vote on brokers' fees

The National Association Of Insurance Commissioners meeting could not come to a consensus on the issue of whether to remove broker and agent fees from the expenses that insurance companies can count as administrative costs under the health law. In the meantime, GOP lawmakers have asked the IRS commissioner to clarify that individuals in state exchanges get any tax credits created under the new law.

Politico Pro: NAIC Puts Off Vote On MLR Resolution
A contentious battle over whether to endorse a motion to remove broker and agent fees from the medical loss ratio brought some drama to a relatively low-key meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners this weekend (Nocera, 11/6).

CQ HealthBeat: GOP Lawmakers Call On IRS To Modify Proposed Reg On Health Law Subsidies
The proposed regulation on the federal health insurance subsidies included in the health overhaul law contradicts the language of the measure when it says tax credits would go to people who enroll in qualified plans both in state-operated exchanges and those run by the federal government, a group of Republican House members say. Twenty-four lawmakers on Friday sent a letter to Commissioner of Internal Revenue Douglas Shulman pointing to the specific language in the health law that says the tax credits would go to individuals who are enrolled in "an exchange established by the state" (Bunis, 11/4).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.