Puerto Rico—home of sandy beaches, balmy weather, and, as of Wednesday, a possible influx of Americans escaping Obamacare.
In a letter posted Wednesday, the Health and Human Services department exempted the U.S. territories from many of the law’s main provisions. This comes after the territories expressed concern that Obamacare would make their insurance market unsustainable, the Washington Post reports.
Obamacare threw a real hurdle at the U.S. territories—Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Certain provisions of the law applied to the territories, while others did not, effectively requiring insurers in the territories to cover everyone including the sick, without offering subsidies or mandating that healthy individuals enroll. In short, it was an ill-fated business model, and territorial insurance regulators quickly sounded the alarm.
They reached out to the Obama administration asking for a one-year postponement of the provision requiring that insurers offer coverage to all. They were told that HHS didn’t have the authority to re-schedule.
However, in Wednesday’s letter, HHS granted the territories’ request and exempted them from a number of key provisions.
Realtors in the area might soon see a major boom in business.
