New Law Forces Health Insurance Companies to Use Plain Language to Explain Policies | AllGov

Good news about Obamacare! As reported in this article (emphasis added):

Making sense of health insurance policies should become easier for consumers, due to one provision of the federal healthcare reform law that kicked in on January 1.

Insurers must now explain to policyholders the “what” and “how” of their coverage using simple language, instead of the jargon-laden descriptions companies used to rely on (presumably to confuse people).

The mandate in the Obamacare law says insurance companies must provide details in no more than four pages that utilize plain English, and include easy-to understand formats that allow for “apples-to-apples comparisons among health plans,” according to Wendell Potter [a former insurance company executive].

For more information about plain English--what it is, how to do it, and what to expect from it--visit Garbl's Plain English Writing Guide. It covers these seven steps:

• Focusing on your reader and purpose
• Organizing your ideas
• Writing clear, effective paragraphs
• Writing clear, simple sentences
• Using suitable words
• Creating an enticing design
• Testing for clarity.

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The article on the new law is featured today, Jan. 10, in my daily online paper, Garbl's Plain English Paragraphs--available at the Plain Language tab above and by free email subscription.