Will Insurers Bail Out Obamacare with Retroactive Enrollments?

On Thursday afternoon, HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius made a number of unusual requests to insurers selling health plans on the Obamacare exchanges.

Sebelius “strongly encouraged” insurers to pay for prescriptions in January that were covered under policyholders’ old plans but not under their new Obamacare plans. She requested that insurers bill some out-of-network care as in-network care. But the most unusual request by far was that insurers allow people to “retroactively” sign up for coverage effective January 1 anytime next month.