Understanding short-term limited duration health insurance Issue brief (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation) Pollitz, Karen, author. Long, Michelle, author. Semanskee, Ashley, author. Kamal, Rabah, author. United States. Insurance, Health -- organization & administration Short-term, limited duration (STLD) health insurance has long been offered to individuals through the non-group market and through associations. The product was designed for people who experience a temporary gap in health coverage.1 Unlike other products that are considered "limited benefit" or "excepted benefit" policies--such as cancer-only policies or hospital indemnity policies that pay a fixed dollar benefit per inpatient stay--short-term policies are generally considered to be "major medical" coverage; however, short-term policies are distinguished from other comprehensive major medical policies because they only provide coverage for a limited term, typically less than 365 days. Short-term policies are also characterized by other significant limitations, including the types of services covered, often with a dollar maximum. Late last year, Congress repealed the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate penalty, the requirement that individuals have minimum essential health coverage or face a tax penalty. Starting in 2019, the tax penalty will be reduced to $0. It is possible this change could lead more consumers to consider purchasing short-term policies. In addition, late last year, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to take steps to expand the availability of short-term health insurance policies, and a proposed regulation to increase the maximum coverage term under such policies was published in February. This brief provides background information on short-term policies and how they differ from ACA-compliant health plans. San Francisco, CA : Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, April 2018 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, issuing body. Technical Report Text 1 online resource (1 PDF file (9 pages)). nlm:nlmuid-101740246-pdf 101740246 http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101740246 English United States Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0