Only the commercial health plans sold through the new public exchanges — and some very similar plans — will be able to participate in a new underwriting profit protection program.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today ruled that only "qualified health plans" — and plans that are "substantially the same as a QHP" — can either make payments to or get cash from the federal "risk corrridors" program.

The drafters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act created the risk corridors program to protect QHP issuers against the possibility that all of the underwriting rules and benefits mandates PPACA is imposing could flood some insurers with claims.

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Allison Bell

Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.