State insurance regulators delayed for at least four weeks action on a resolution that would support insurance agents' demands for an exemption from the healthcare reform law's medical loss ratio (MLR) provision.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Professional Health Insurance Advisors Task Force took the action on March 27.

The panel decided to ask the NAIC staff to provide substantial data that it will use to determine whether to support the request by insurance agents, brokers and health-insurance companies for a resolution backing House legislation that would exempt agent commissions from the MLR.

The agents and brokers want the NAIC to endorse H.R. 1206, the "Access to Professional Health Insurance Advisors Act of 2011." Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.) have sponsored the legislation.

Sandy Praeger, Kansas insurance commissioner and chair of the Health Insurance Advisors Task Force, said after the meeting: "This was the right thing to do. We need to base our decisions on appropriate data."

Beth Mantz Steindecker, a healthcare analyst at Washington Analysis, says the decision "is not fatal" to the efforts by agents and to be exempted from the MLR.

The agents, led by the National Association of Health Underwriters, the Independent Agents and Brokers of America, the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, say that insurance companies have used the authority provided under the MLR provision to cut their commissions as much as 50 percent this year.

Steindecker acknowledges that NAIC support is a "key factor" in building momentum for House action. But a greater hurdle will be the Senate.

"The Senate is a key obstacle because Senate liberals, led by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), are key opponents of any change to the law," she says.

Rockefeller and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) wrote letters to the panel asking the NAIC not to pass the resolution.

In his letter, Rockefeller calls the MLR a key "pro-consumer" provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Special Reports /

NAIC Wants More Info Before Supporting Agents On MLR

Related Stories

Recommended For You