Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel

Today, the IRS and Department of Treasury issued final regulations that bring us one step closer to expanding coverage options for millions of uninsured Americans who will start enrolling in new health plans on October 1. These final rules finalize the health care law’s requirement that individuals carry a minimum level of insurance. This requirement is central to improving women’s access to the health insurance market by making it financially possible for insurers to provide coverage to all who seek it at a reasonable cost.

Unlike today’s market, the 2014 health insurance market will provide comprehensive coverage to women regardless of pre-existing conditions that includes coverage for essential health benefits including maternity coverage – and women won’t be charged more than men for that coverage. In order to make that market a reality, it is important that people don’t wait to get sick to enroll in coverage.

Have you ever tried to compare health plans? It isn’t easy. Insurance companies design brochures to sell their plans. They have pictures of people holding hands, pushing a child on a swing, smiling in the doctor’s office and just being happy. They highlight everything that is great about the plan and, by the time you get to the chart summarizing the benefits, you would think this is the best insurance plan ever.

Then you look at another plan’s brochure that also makes the plan seem like the best insurance plan ever. But you try to compare the benefits and you aren’t really sure what you are comparing. The brochures use different terms and different formats. You can’t find a description of maternity coverage. You are trying to figure out how all the dollars and percentages add up to actual costs.

Starting today, things are different. That is because plans now have to provide all applicants and enrollees a standard Summary of Benefits and Coverage (called the SBC for short) and a uniform glossary. The Summary is simple to read, short, and provides a standard chart of benefits and coverage examples that every plan must use. The Glossary provides standard definitions of important health insurance terms that impact your coverage.