Death spiral? Obamacare insurers may be having best year yet under ACA

[n2doc]

Obamacare insurers may be having ‘best year’ yet under ACA

BY TONY PUGH



WASHINGTON New data on the improving finances of the nation’s individual insurers are calling into question repeated Republican claims that Obamacare marketplaces are collapsing under the Affordable Care Act.

For months, Republican leaders from President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to House Speaker Paul Ryan have said Obamacare was crumbling under its own weight and could not be saved. And this week, when HHS announced a 38 percent decline in the number of insurers that want to offer coverage next year in states that use the federal marketplace, Price said, “The situation has never been more dire.”

But new research released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that profitability and other financial measures for individual insurers have dramatically improved over the last year.

“Now it looks like they’re on track to be profitable and that they’re actually having the best year that they’ve had since the ACA began,” said Cynthia Cox, associate director of health reform at Kaiser.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article160601814.html#storylink=cpy

[Johonny]

1. Listening to insurers, what is killing them is the unknown state of the future of the market

because the GOP is threaten to A) change the regulations B) withhold subsidizing money C) monkey with the promised risk pools by eliminating the mandate.

The GOP not only have no real health care plan they're hurting the one we have. The sad thing is, they don't seem to care.

[zipplewrath]

2. They'll just repeat the claim about "XX counties that have no plans at all."

They harp about the counties that currently have no plan. I heard somewhere that that's like 60,000 people who are affected. This are VERY sparsely populated counties and not EVERYONE in them is on the exchange. The easy solution to that is the Public Option. And for 60,000 people, that's not all that expensive either. Even in the counties with only one plan, the Public Option would be useful for ensuring some choice and some price competition.

[stopbush]

3. I understand it's 38 counties out of the entire country.

Aren't there something like 7,000 counties in the USA?

[zipplewrath]

4. 3144

So it suggests about 1% of the counties. This is a very solvable problem that doesn't need to be solved by forcing 22 million people off of medicaid.

[Gothmog]

5. There is no death spiral