The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is trying to eliminate any possibility that consumers will use limited-benefit health insurance as a substitute for traditional coverage.

HHS wants carriers to sell individual limited-benefit health insurance products – "fixed indemnity insurance" – only to consumers who have "minimum essential coverage."

MEC is coverage consumers can use to get out of having to pay the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act penalty.

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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.