The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Thursday approved a House-passed bill that aims to prevent fraud in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
Under H.R. 1836, the Federal Employees Health Care Protection Act, the Office of Personnel Management would be required to debar health care plans for at least 3 years if the plans' owners are convicted of criminal offenses, including overcharging for services or providing substandard or unnecessary care. OPM would also encourage health care plans to fully disclose discounted rate agreements to health care providers, who have complained that some plans have arranged for discounts to which they were not entitled.
In addition, employees of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. who would not have been eligible to continue FEHBP coverage into retirement will be allowed to do so. The Fed and FDIC had dropped out of FEHBP, but returned to the program in 1993 and 1997 respectively. FEHBP rules require employees to be covered by the program for five consecutive years if they wish to continue to be covered into retirement. Without the change, some employees at the Fed and FDIC would have to find alternative health care coverage.
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