Medicare and the ACA's "Minimum Essential Coverage"
By Elie Harriett
June 20, 2016One of the required documents everyone gets when they purchase a new Medicare Supplement policy is called the “Choosing a Medigap Policy.” This guide, published by the federal government and reprinted by the insurance companies, gets updated every year around June. Every year, we go through it and, mostly, it is the same guide with the normal list of grammatical corrections and updates reflecting Medicare costs. But every few years, there are some subtle changes which are important. This year, our reading of the guide and comparing it to last year’s have found one minor change which we thought we’d bring to your attention.
On page 8 of the 2016 guide, it has a new question: “is Medicare coverage ‘minimum essential coverage?’” Minimum Essential Coverage [MEC] is the bare-bones coverage a person must have to meet the responsibility requirements of the Affordable Care Act. This new paragraph states that anyone who has at least Medicare Part A meets this requirement. However, a person who has Medicare Part B ONLY does not. It is not a typical scenario for a person to have Medicare Part B only without Medicare Part A and the great majority of people will not be affected by this.
The new wording also states that a person enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan would also meet the MEC requirements. This is a misnomer, as a person is required to be enrolled in both Medicare Part A AND Part B to be eligible for any Medicare Advantage plan. And while the book does not state this in that paragraph, that same requirement applies to Medicare Supplements. All people with supplements are required to have both parts A & B before they can enroll in a supplement, thus automatically fulfilling the MEC requirement.
Everyone who is in either a supplement or an advantage plan automatically meets the MEC requirements for the Affordable Care Act and need not concern themselves with any of the penalties for not having Exchange/Marketplace health plans.
Click here to download your copy of the 2016 Choosing a Medigap Guide.
