TRICARE

MEC is a broad category that includes employer plans, Medicare, Medicaid, and other coverage satisfying the coverage requirement, while a QHP is a specific exchange-certified plan. — Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) is the umbrella category of coverage that satisfies the ACA individual coverage requirement. It includes employer-sponsored plans, individual market plans, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, TRICARE, and other government programs. A Qualified Health Plan is a narrower concept: a specific commercial plan certified by an exchange and offered through it. Every QHP is one type of MEC, but much MEC is not QHP — for example, an employer plan or Medicare is MEC but not a QHP. Understanding this subset relationship is a definitional question in the PPACA section of the A&H outline.

National insurance concept

Satisfies the individual mandate requirement to maintain health coverage — Minimum essential coverage (MEC) is the coverage that satisfies the ACA's individual shared responsibility provision, meaning the coverage a person must have to avoid the federal penalty where applicable. MEC includes employer-sponsored group coverage, Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP, TRICARE and veterans' coverage, most individual and exchange plans, and grandfathered plans. Limited-benefit products such as accident-only or fixed-indemnity policies are generally not MEC. MEC is a coverage-status concept, not a guarantee that every medical expense is paid in full. Meeting the MEC threshold is a threshold question in every ACA enrollment, because it determines whether a consumer is protected from the individual mandate.

National insurance concept