HB 1827 - The act lowers the number of members an group association health insurance plan must have. Current law requires group health insurance plans to be issued to associations that have at least 100 members. The act lowers this to 50. The act also creates a new type of group health insurance policy. Under the act, a group policy may be issued to an association or to a trust or to the trustees of a fund established, created and maintained for the benefit of employer members of one or more associations, or issued to an employer member of an association for a health benefit plan negotiated by the association for the benefit of its employer member companies. The association or associations shall have at the outset a minimum of fifty employer members. The association shall have been organized and maintained in good faith for purposes other than that of obtaining insurance and must have been in active existence for at least two years. The act allows the director to exempt insurers that issue health benefit plans to small and large employers from the index rate restriction which prohibits the index rate for a rating period for any class of business from exceeding the index rate for any other class of business by more than 20%. In order to exceed the 20% rating band, the health benefit plan must be underwritten and rated as a single employer, have a uniform health benefit plan design, guarantee issue to all association employer members and eligible employees, and comply with other federal and state insurance requirements. STEPHEN WITTE
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