Insurance giant Anthem announced it would leave the marketplaces - also called exchanges - where individuals can use federal subsidies to buy health plans in two states in 2018, in and Wisconsin. Actual participation and final rates won't be set until late summer or closer to the November 1 start of enrolment for next year's coverage.
The average rate increase requested by all nine insurers on the individual market for 2018 coverage is 17.8 percent, including plans that will not be sold on the exchange. This comes a few weeks after the nation's second-largest insurer also said it was pulling out of Ohio's exchange. But if the Trump administration doesn't commit to making cost-sharing payments or to enforcing the individual mandate that requires people to have insurance, his rates could go up a lot.
Saying Medicaid reform is necessary, but not in the way it has been suggested recently in Congress, the leaders of 10 health insurance plans have issued a joint letter to all 100 Senators and key committee members urging them to reconsider proposed Medicaid provisions and their potential impact.
Heading into 2018, insurers are still anxious about attracting enough healthy people to balance claims from the sick. Oscar Health, a start-up company that was co-founded by Ivanka Trump's brother-in-law, announced it would expand in Ohio, New Jersey, Texas, Tennessee, California and NY.
Senate GOP unveils 'Obamacare' overhaul, but not all aboard
The law has grown in popularity and many more Americans are insured, making the new safety net hard to unravel. Senate Republicans unveiled a 142-page draft bill Thursday to repeal and replace the Obama health care law.
Hilferty said the ACA has problems, but it did manage to bring insurance coverage to about 20 million people who didn't have it before.
The final assessment of how many Americans would lose coverage if the bill passes will come next week from the Congressional Budget Office, and some industry groups said they were reserving judgment until then. That could put four counties at possible risk of having no insurer next year, according to Kaiser, although that is uncertain because a different insurer, Centene, has announced it is expanding in the state. Some, non-profit Blue Cross-Blue Shield plans in particular, have spent decades in their markets and are reluctant to end such long-standing presences.
Others want to protect investments they have made into setting up networks of providers, hoping they can eventually make money. "This is also about poor people in the South who will really be screwed if this rug gets pulled out from under them".
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