Another wrinkle in HHS's announcement about payments for uninsured COVID-19 patients. @AmyLotven reports that HHS claims that people with short-term plans won't count as "uninsured" for these purposes. That's (partially) unlawful.

Amy reports: “Inside Health Policy asked whether short-term health plans would count as coverage, and an administration official said the plans would, even though they are not required to cover the Affordable Care Act's essential health benefits." https://insidehealthpolicy.com/hhs-announces-additional-allocations-cares-act-provider-relief-fund

But the definition of uninsured isn't (entirely) up to HHS. The Families First Act provided $1 billion to fund coverage of TESTING for the uninsured, defining uninsured to mean anyone without comprehensive coverage. Someone with a short term plan would be considered uninsured.

HHS also announced it is using some funding from the CARES Act's $100 billion fund for health care providers to cover TREATMENT costs of the uninsured. (More thoughts on why their approach is problematic at tweet thread below). https://twitter.com/clinkeyoung/status/1253058899390930945

In theory, the Families First Act definition of uninsured doesn't have to apply to the way HHS uses CARES Act money... but HHS is required by law to use the Families First definition for testing.

HHS has decided to implement those two programs together, under one umbrella. So if they want to use a single definition of uninsured for both programs, it has to be the broader one required by Families First, not a narrow one they made up.

Given widespread misleading marketing of short term plans amid COVID-19, hopefully HHS fixes their error and comes into compliance with the law. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/usc-brookings-schaeffer-on-health-policy/2020/03/24/misleading-marketing-of-short-term-health-plans-amid-covid-19/