New "Summary of Benefits and Coverage" for Health Insurance Policies Will Be Available to Consumers Beginning on Sunday, September 23

Summaries Will Greatly Improve Understanding of Health Policies, Help Consumers Understand Their Rights, and Simplify Plan Comparisons

Affordable Care Act Requires Insurers to Provide Plain Language "Summary of Benefits" to Consumers

Washington, D.C.—Starting on September 23, health care consumers will have access to important new tools to understand and compare health insurance policies. Called the “Summary of Benefits and Coverage,” these simple four-page documents will be made available for group and individual private health insurance plans and will provide a concise, plain-language description of the benefits and costs under each plan.

The Affordable Care Act, often called ObamaCare, requires insurers to provide the summary to their policyholders and to consumers shopping for coverage, and it requires that the summaries for all policies follow a standard format, allowing for easy comparison of the key features and benefits under different plans.

A Families USA report released in May 2012, titled Decoding Your Health Insurance: The New Summary of Benefits and Coverage, outlines the information that insurers must now make available to consumers. The report details who and how many consumers will benefit from this information, and it illustrates by example the kind of information offered in the summaries.

“The Summary of Benefits and Coverage is being released at an important time—just as consumers are starting their homework prior to fall’s ‘open enrollment season’ for health care policy renewals,” Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, said today.

“These summaries, with their standardized, plain-language descriptions of benefits, will make apples-to-apples comparisons of policies much easier,” Pollack said. “This consumer aid is just one more key benefit of the Affordable Care Act, and its net effect will be to make consumers much better informed on the nature and limits of their coverage.”

###

Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan and advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

1201 New York Avenue NW, Suite 1100 · Washington, DC 20005
202-628-3030 · Email: info@familiesusa.org · www.familiesusa.org