No Credit? No problem. You can still purchase insurance in the Marketplace.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week issued proposed rules around the financial integrity and oversight of the forthcoming health insurance Exchanges, or Marketplaces.  Within the lengthy documents is a small, but welcome provision, that would require any health insurance issuer on the Exchange to accept multiple forms of payment, including cashier’s checks, money orders, and pre-paid debit cards.  This is good news for the estimated 51 million adults that do not have a bank account.  Come January 2014, everyone is required to have health insurance.  Kaiser Health News (with NPR) and Jackson Hewitt have each raised alarms over payment options in the Exchange for low-income uninsured Americans.  Jackson Hewitt found that 1 in 4 Americans eligible for tax credits in the Exchange do not have a checking account and would not be able to enroll in coverage if the insurance companies accepted only electronic funds transfers from checking accounts or credit cards.  HHS responded to the concerns with the issuance of last week’s proposed rules, stating that people without bank accounts or credit cards “should be able to access coverage through an Exchange on the same basis as those with a bank account or credit card and should not be unable to access coverage merely due to the inability to pay their share of the premium.”  Read the text of the proposed rules here or more on the story from The Star Ledger or Kaiser Health News.