Updates About Health Insurance

The House Health Policy Committee heard testimony on bills that would amend Michigan’s Healthy Michigan program, allowing for more flexibility in the program by removing outdated statutory language that has not resulted in cost savings for the state.

Specifically, the bills would eliminate cost-sharing and healthy behavior requirements for beneficiaries which will allow for Medicaid health plans to be more innovative in creating incentives for beneficiaries to engage in healthy behaviors.

The bills are expected to be voted on in the coming weeks by the House Health Policy Committee.

On May 11, 2023, the first testimony-only hearing was held on HB 4071, a bill that would prohibit health insurers from applying financial requirements that are more restrictive on oral chemotherapies than they do for IV chemotherapies. Stakeholders including the Michigan Society of Hematology and Oncology, the American Cancer Society, the Michigan State Medical Society, and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society supported the legislation’s passage and urged the committee to take swift action.

The bill sponsor, Representative Samantha Steckloff [D- Farmington Hills] gave the most powerful testimony, as hers was personal. Representative Steckloff is a breast cancer survivor and champion of oral chemotherapy parity as she herself must take an oral chemotherapy drug. A week after the first testimony-only hearing, House bill 4071 was voted out of the House Health Policy Committee by a vote of 14-3, and now awaits action on the House floor.

Starting this spring, Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide will begin having to renew their coverage once again. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, certain Medicaid requirements were temporarily waived, and determinations of eligibility were paused.

Due to the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) ending on May 11, Medicaid beneficiaries will be removed from the program if they are no longer eligible. Thousands of people may lose coverage and seniors who would normally automatically transition from Medicaid to Medicare may have missed the Medicare Supplement open enrollment window.

The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) is making sure Michigan residents stay covered as Medicaid redeterminations resume. DIFS is outlining Medicare enrollment opportunities for seniors, now having increased opportunities to enroll in Medicare once their Medicaid coverage ends. DIFS also issued an order allowing individuals eligible for Medicare to enroll in a supplement plan regardless of health status or age. This will ensure eligible seniors will receive appropriate coverage and not pay more because of their health status, medical history, or timing of their Medicare enrollment.