Posted on 08/11/2016 10:45:56 AM PDT by Red Badger
The next president could be dealing with an ObamaCare insurer meltdown in his or her very first month.
The incoming administration will take office just as the latest ObamaCare enrollment tally comes in, delivering a potentially crucial verdict about the still-shaky healthcare marketplaces.
The fourth ObamaCare signup period begins about one week before Election Day, and it will end about one week before inauguration on Jan. 20. After mounting complaints from big insurers about losing money this year, the results could serve as a kind of judgment day for ObamaCare, experts say.
“The next open enrollment period is key,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Obama administration has struggled for several years to bring young, healthy people into the marketplaces, which is needed to offset the medical costs of older and sicker customers.
These problems are coming to light this year, as insurers get their first full look at ObamaCare customer data. Some, like UnitedHealth Group, say they’ve seen enough and are already vowing to leave the exchanges.
Levitt and other experts warn that if the numbers don’t improve this year, more insurers could bolt. That would deal a major blow to marketplace competition while also driving up rates and keeping even more people out of the exchanges.
Already, many insurers this year are proposing substantial rate hikes with the hopes of making up for higher recent medical costs. The average premium increase next year is about 9 percent, according to an analysis of 17 cities by the Kaiser Family Foundation. But some hikes are far higher: Blue Cross Blue Shield has proposed increases of 40 percent in Alabama and 60 percent in Texas.
Levitt said the premium hikes could be “just be a one-time market correction” in the still-new marketplace. But if insurers continue to lose money, it could be a sign of bigger problems.
Republican nominee Donald Trump has vowed to undo ObamaCare, but it could be a tough test for Hillary Clinton, President Obama's potential Democratic successor.
Clinton has already laid out plans to help boost enrollment by making coverage more affordable for people who are still priced out of ObamaCare.
Like Obama, she vowed to invest in advertising and in-person outreach to help more people enroll. Clinton would also increase ObamaCare subsidies so that customers spend no more than 8.5 percent of their income on premiums — down from 9.5 percent under current law.
She has also proposed a tax credit of up to $5,000 per family specifically to offset rising out-of-pocket costs — a side effect of cheaper plans offered under ObamaCare.
But other experts say the problems could lie deeper and that it would take a major shift in ObamaCare’s customer base to offset those massive medical costs.
Insurers have fretted for years about lower-than-expected enrollment through ObamaCare.
Last year, more than 11 million people bought coverage through the exchanges. While that figure beat the Obama administration’s expectations for 2016, it’s a huge drop from the Congressional Budget Office’s initial projections that 21 million would be enrolled by that time.
Now, several high-profile insurers are raising new concerns about the healthcare law’s mix of customers and questioning whether their companies can keep selling ObamaCare plans.
Part of those concerns stem from distrust of the Obama administration after its key marketplace stabilization program — known as risk corridors — was too cash-strapped to pay back the insurers. In the first two years of the healthcare law, more insurers than expected have ended up with balance sheets in the red. As a result, the risk corridor pool was left with only about $1 to cover every $10 in claims.
But those risk corridor payments, as well as from a similar program called reinsurance, have played a major role in controlling costs for insurers.
A recent study by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund found that medical claims were only 2 percent higher than insurers projected, after taking into account the reinsurance payments.
In some corners, though, insurer complaints are seen as fresh evidence that ObamaCare marketplaces are on the brink.
In the last month, two major insurers — Aetna and Anthem — both reversed course on their plans to expand in the marketplace. Now, all five of the nation’s largest insurers say they are losing money on the exchanges.
“From a policy point of view, we’re basically seeing the exchanges unravel,” said Michael Abrams, a healthcare strategist with Numerof & Associates who consults for insurers including UnitedHealth Group.
“More than anything else, it’s a serious symbolic blow to ObamaCare,” he said.
The two companies’ abrupt decisions to pull back from ObamaCare have baffled healthcare experts. Both Aetna and Anthem had previously been optimistic about the marketplace, unlike UnitedHealth, which had been cautious from the start.
As recently as this spring, Anthem said it was “well-positioned” to stay in the marketplace, and Aetna said it was in a “very good place."
None of the top five companies — which also include UnitedHealth, Cigna and Humana — had been major players in the ObamaCare marketplace and are unlikely to cause sudden rate hikes for most customers. They’re also unlikely to have a major effect on competition next year, though some people could see rate hikes in the local markets where the carriers are exiting.
Some experts say the insurers’ moves this year could be part of a strategy to drive more changes to the marketplace over time.
“I’ve been dealing with insurance companies for many years, and it is often the case that insurance companies say, ‘Gee, things are horrible, business is horrible, we’re going to pull out,” said Leighton Wu, a professor of health policy at George Washington University.
“Some of it is a posturing thing, this is what companies do,” added Wu, who also sits on the board of the D.C. Health Exchange.
"Some insurers will say, ‘We’re unhappy, we’d like to get paid better.’”
It certainly is not working anything like we were told it would. The system as a whole is in crisis but more pressing, most individuals are in personal crisis having this communist health collective forced on us and having the insurance companies intentionally driven out.
Those of you that have been retired for the last several years can take a simple test to illustrate our personal crisis. Just compare your total personal medical care expense five years ago with now. Compare the percent of your personal disposable income including SSA today is consumed with medical costs today with just five years ago.
Great West combined with Cigna and then Cigna combined with Blue Cross. Still waiting to see what impact the latest merger will have on doctor clients who are Cigna providers but not providers with Blue Cross.
United Healthcare is a joke. The big umbrella is Optum, the mental health portion is generally United Behavioral Health. Just received notice that they have signed a whole lot of contracts in Texas for totally state funded plans for illegals, particularly children. Contract rates for docs who see patients under the state funded plan are a lot higher than is paid to the docs who see patients under an employer funded plan. Taxpayers are being taken to the cleaners! Thanks Governor.
Today, it is fashionable, in vogue, to completely ignore parts (Article I Section 8, limited powers) while observing others (Presidential election every 4 years). The line between ignore what's fashionable to ignore and what's fashionable to follow is very grey.
Whose to say the remaining parts we follow today won't erode away slowly into the future, such as the presidential election/electoral college part? Whose to say the remaining parts we follow today won't erode away quite quickly? or overnight due to some "crisis"?
The looming ObamaCare crisis will be solved by the UniParty: single payor healthcare financing.
“in-person outreach to help more people enroll”
Commie care is bad enough, now we’re going to have brown-shirts knocking on people’s doors asking why they haven’t signed up.
Don’t both candidates want single payer?
Obama: The Jive Hustler who relies on the ignorance of idiots to believe every word he says.
Obamacare demolition does not matter. Hilda beast will be safely ensconced in the White House by then.
while also driving up rates
It was designed to drive up rates and to push insurance companies into bankruptcy so they could foist their single payer system on everyone.
Average cost are going up 9% ???? Really? They turn right around and cite 2 states with 40% increases and you can add so many more, like Illinois.
Everyone I know is having rate increases on a massive scale and not just the exchanges. What you get from your employer may be a group policy, not necessarily an exchange policy. How much have they gone up? Ours have gone up double digits every year since this dumblecrat bohica law was passed.
That’s over doubled the cost.
IMHO everything tht has been, is, and will be written about the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) starts with a false premise.
The authors of this act did NOT intend for it to be successful. That’s right it was designed, written, and executed to be a failure. So, from that view point it has been a smashing success!
ObamaCare was an intermediate step designed to forceful ably transition America’s healthcare system from a free market model to a one payer pays all system like all Socialist based healthcare systems.
The people involved in its development took a fairly successful system which they had no control over and replaced with a failed design which they controlled from start (birth) to end (death).
Bottom-line:
It was never about healthcare it was always about control.
My medical expenses have not changed in 5 years. Close to zero in 5 years. I am in my 11th year on Medicare. My medicine is 1 hour total walk at brisk pace every day, almost no red meat, lots and lots of fruits and vegetables, no smoking, 1 glass of Riesling in any one day. Only medication i take is Lisinopril 10 mg, which costs me 40 cents for 3 month supply at Walmart. yes that is cents, not dollars.
Freepers should go through the comments on the Hill article, they are mostly commenting like Sam Adams wild right now. A Trump tsunami is coming.
I would think that the key date is not the date the sign up talleys are due but rather the date that the consumers sign up for coverage. That’s the date the sticker shock hits.
Planned that way.
“Possible”? The Hill is a joke.
And it don’t rain
in Indianapolis
In the summer time
There’s no such thing as Dr. Seuss
Disneyland
or Mother Goose
There’s no nursery rhymes...
I believe in market-driven healthcare. We have an existing "government-run" healthcare system: Medicare. And it is rife with abuse and inefficiency. It is corrupt, and wastes BILLIONS of tax dollars every year. For that matter, The VA is "government-run" healthcare - also corrupt and inefficient. The horror stories we hear about veteran's care...we should all be ashamed that we let our government treat so poorly those who have served.
There is not one solution that will provide good care to every single citizen, but I believe that market-driven healthcare policies will result in more people covered and more choices for healthcare consumers. Health insurers are constrained by a lot of government red tape. Our government can loosen the rules and allow more competition - across state lines, for example. Again, there is no single solution on healthcare or health insurance. But I trust the market and consumers to make good decisions. Any government plan (like Medicare and the VA), regardless of good intentions, eventually becomes a bargaining chip for politicians.
Regarding your comment, "Leave people in the streets to die," - ask the families of some VA-insured patients who pretty much were left to die waiting for care.
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