Obamacare ‘not in death spiral’? The case near Trump’s Palm Beach door
Florida Blue confirmed after-tax profitability in the "high single digits" for individual plans on and off the ACA marketplace, a company spokesman told
"We were pleased by our performance in the ACA business in 2016, and appreciated the opportunity to serve our members across the state," spokesman
Trump has warned Obamacare will "explode."
But S&P said the "ACA individual market is not in a death spiral" -- unless Trump and
Without that money, insurers are likely either to bail out of 2018 ACA markets or raise premiums an average of 19 percent nationally and 25 percent in
Has all this been free of complaints and problems? No. Insurers including
Florida Blue customers in
Company officials apologized and pledged to work hard to line up consumers with other providers.
Then, too, what insurers see as financially healthy can strike others, like single-payer advocates, as just corporations grabbing a big middleman's hunk of their hard-earned dollars.
The 2010 federal health law tries to address that. Insurers can be required to give rebates to customers if they don't spend at least 80 percent of premiums providing care for members. Rebates have not yet been determined for 2016 under a formula that comes with its own set of costs and adjustments and can vary by individual subsidiaries within the company, Kluding said. Filings are not due for a couple of months, he said.
But in terms of financial stability, most
"The
Still, the marketplace remains "fragile" in the sense that it is vulnerable to disruptions such as Trump's threat to withhold about
Cost-sharing money helps cover out-of-pocket consumer costs for things like co-pays and deductibles. It comes in addition to subsidies that lower the premiums that lower-income consumers pay.
A letter Thursday from "safety net" hospital and community groups urged congressional leaders to continue cost-sharing money, in which case "premium increases are expected to instead be in the single digits."
All of this matters now because insurers must decide by
House leaders have declined to drop a lawsuit challenging the cost-sharing money in a case whose next hearing is set for
The uncertainty alone has had an impact. Two major insurers have pulled out in
By his own account this month, Trump has tried to use the cost-sharing money as leverage to get
"I don't want people to get hurt," Trump told The Wall Street Journal. "What I think should happen -- and will happen -- is the
The
The administration is "currently deciding" about subsidies, a statement from the
An initial move to roll back close to
That's why the administration either has to get it right on a better way, or look out the back door and decide whether to embrace Not Necessarily A Death Spiral.
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