As Republicans consider paring back the Affordable Care Act’s federal mandates, they face a difficult question: What does health insurance need to cover?
The 2010 health law created a new set of federal requirements for plans sold to individuals and small businesses, including a list of 10 benefits, among them prescription drugs, mental-health services and laboratory tests. It also mandated that plans cover preventive services such as vaccinations at no cost to enrollees.
The rules, along with other minimum standards set by the law, were meant to ensure that consumers had strong protections and weren’t surprised by unexpected gaps or limits in their coverage. But that also contributed to making individual insurance more expensive in many cases.
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