Humana, United and Assurant allow non-compliant policies to be extended; Anthem and Bluegrass offer sort of half a loaf

Some health-insurance companies won't give Kentucky customers the opportunity to renew polices that don't comply with the federal health-reform law, under the conditional extension granted by President Obama, state Insurance Commissioner Sharon Clark told a legislative committee yesterday.

"Humana, United Healthcare and Assurant Health say they will go along with President Barack Obama?s healthcare fix and let thousands of their customers renew their canceled insurance policies for another year," The Courier-Journal reports. "Insurers such as Bluegrass Family Health and Anthem are offering an alternative, providing some consumers an early renewal option that essentially could allow them to keep existing coverage partly into 2014."

"Melissa Metzger, an attorney for Anthem, said the company has spent more than $150 million to beef up operational systems and develop products that would meet the ACA requirements, often in markets that Anthem has served for decades," C-J reporters Mike Wynn and Chris Kenning write.

"About 280,000 Kentuckians ? 130,000 in individual plans and 150,000 in group plans ? have or will receive discontinuation notices from insurance companies saying their current health plans would not be offered under the federal health care law," Kevin Wheatley reports for The State Journal in Frankfort. "About a third of Anthem?s more than 100,000 individual plan members and half of its 100,000 group plan members have accepted" the company's offer, which expires Dec. 15, "to change the effective date of their current policies to Dec. 1, meaning they could carry that plan through Dec. 1, 2014."

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