Kansas insurance consultant-turned-lawmaker wants you to buy junk health coverage

Kansans who care about open government, and quality health care, should pay close attention to an argument going on in Topeka.

For years, Americans have been allowed to buy “short-term, limited duration” health insurance policies. The policies are cheaper than regular insurance, for a good reason — they provide far less coverage.

Under the Affordable Care Act, these short-term policies lasted for just 90 days. The idea was to provide the option of low-quality insurance for people between jobs, or nearing retirement, but only as a stopgap solution.

The term “junk insurance” is accurate.

Former President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans were pretty fond of junk insurance. In 2018, Trump issued rules making stop-gap insurance legal for up to three years, instead of just 90 days.

Now the Kansas Legislature is debating a bill, SB 199, allowing a similar three-year window for low-cost, non-compliant junk insurance within the state. Current law allows for 12 months, renewable once.

Further action on the bill may come as early as Thursday.

A three-year option is a bad idea. “People enrolled in short-term plans can face huge medical bills if they become sick,” the American Heart Association recently told a state Senate committee.

Short-term plans “systematically discriminate against individuals with preexisting conditions,” Cigna testified.

The bill could “seriously undermine the key principles of access, adequacy, and affordability that are the underpinnings of current law,” said a representative of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Lawmakers should reject the measure. Current law allows Kansans to buy substandard insurance for up to two years, so there’s no need to make the window any longer.

But Kansans should also pay close attention to how this bill is being debated.

A similar bill was offered in 2019. One of the people who testified in favor of the bill then was Beverly Gossage, a health insurance business consultant and one-time insurance broker with at least an arguable financial stake in any change.

In the face of the COVID-19 emergency, it didn’t pass.

Beverly Gossage is now state Sen. Gossage. And recently, as a lawmaker, she again testified in favor of the bill. She sits on the Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee, which is debating it.

Gossage is also the vice-chair of the Committee on Public Health and Welfare. Why is that significant? Because that committee is the sponsor of SB 199. There is no individual sponsor.

It’s the same frustrating approach we sharply criticized in our series, “Why so secret, Kansas?” The committee sponsorship disguises the involvement of any senator or representative in proposing this bill, making it harder for the public to see what’s really going on.

We asked Sen. Gossage to explain her role in the measure, if any. She did not respond.

Issues like these can be tricky. Farmers can vote on farm policy in the Legislature; teachers can vote on education issues; lawyers write laws. But at minimum, Kansans should demand full disclosure of potential conflicts, so that voters can make up their own minds.

In this case, the Legislature should reject a measure making it easier to buy substandard health coverage for up to three years, and it should finally reform the murky process used to bring the matter up.

This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.