EDITORIAL: Want to stabilize insurance markets? Stop undermining and trying to repeal Affordable Care Act.
If the company doesn't know how many people will be in a market and what its rules will be, it is very difficult to set the rates it will charge its customers.
The uncertainty around the ACA comes not from the law itself -- as
In a June report, the federal
Yet,
Despite the failure of repeal legislation, the Trump administration is weakening the ACA through other means.
It has cut the annual enrollment period in half, and it will shut down the online enrollment system several times during that period for lengthy stretches. It has also slashed spending by 72 percent on advertising to encourage enrollment in the ACA marketplace and on navigators who help people sign up for plans.
The administration has threatened to withhold payments that lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs for the lowest-income ACA marketplace insurance buyers.
These actions work against people buying insurance through the marketplaces, leaving in the insurance pool sicker people whose health care needs are more expensive to cover. A lack of balance results in higher costs for insurance companies, which then raise their premiums.
The reality of the ACA marketplaces does not matter to critics of the act. They wrongly blame the act for being a failure when it is their continued attacks on the health insurance law that are causing the uncertainty that is driving companies from the ACA marketplaces and is a large factor in rising health insurance costs.
"A stable insurance market is dependent on products that create value for consumers through the broad spreading of risk and a known set of conditions upon which rates can be developed."
Translation, with fewer people in the market, it is harder to spread risk -- and costs -- to enough policyholders to make the finances work. Second, without "a known set of conditions" -- i.e. will the federal government continue to fund subsidies? Will the individual mandate be enforced? Will cost-sharing payments continue? -- companies like
"Current uncertainty in the market makes it difficult for us and other health insurers to plan constructively for the future, and indecision about subsidies for low-income individuals has further complicated matters," Harvard Pilgrim Vice President
If LePage and Poliquin are truly concerned about rising insurance rates and companies leaving the ACA marketplace, they should encourage bipartisan efforts to improve and stabilize the Affordable Care Act.
Complaining and pointing fingers is easy -- but it gets individual insurance markets across the country no closer to stability.
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