...the assumption is that as long as insurance carriers either a) know they'll make a profit in a given market or b) think they'll make a profit at some point in the near future, they'll participate in that market, right?
However, that's not necessarily the case. As we saw last year in the case of Aetna, profitability itself doesn't necessarily guarantee participation. Aetna pulled out of 11 states, and while they were losing money on the indy market in most of them, there were at least 2 states (Pennsylvania and Florida) where they were making a profit, yet bailed anyway. In fact, in Florida, the only reason they were making a profit in the indy market was because of their exchange business (they were losing money off-exchange).
I see that I've been thrown into the crossfire of a wonk debate between John Cochrane (who I've never actually heard of before today) and Brad DeLong/Paul Krugman (both of whom I very much have heard of!) regarding the question of whether the individual healthcare market is or isn't in a Death Spiral and/or whether it will/won't enter one next year.
Back in January, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that, overall, they didn't see any death spiral forming if the ACA is kept mostly intact...but also concluded that growth of the exchange population has likely plateaued; around 13 million appears to be the enrollment ceiling barring any significant changes to the law. Interestingly, however, a couple of weeks ago they concluded that there would also be no death spiral if the GOP's AHCA "replacement" plan were to become law either.
Of course, as I (and others on both sides of the political spectrum) have written about many, many times, not everyone who selects a QHP (either on or off the exchanges) actually pays their first premium, and therefore is never actually enrolled in an active, effectuated policy. This amounted to roughly 12-13% of all QHP selections in 2014, but has improved over the past 3 years as people got used to how the system works and technical improvements were made. I've been using a 10% non-payment rate as a general rule of thumb for some time now.
Of the 31 states which have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, only a handful issue regular monthly or weekly enrollment reports.
Back on February 28th I noted that ACA Medicaid expansion enrollment across three states (Michigan, Louisiana and Pennsylvania) had grown by about 35,000 people since mid-January, to 667K, 406K and 716K people respectively.
Today, a month later, I decided to take another look at all three states, along with Minnesota (which I forgot to check last month). Sure enough, enrollment has continued to grow in all four, albeit at a slower pace:
As noted a few weeks ago, Humana has already decided that regardless of what actions Donald Trump, Tom Price or Congressional Republicans end up doing (or not doing), they expect the 2018 individual market to be a big mess they want no part of...either on or off the exchanges:
...based on its initial analysis of data associated with the company’s healthcare exchange membership following the 2017 open enrollment period, Humana is seeing further signs of an unbalanced risk pool. Therefore, the company has decided that it cannot continue to offer this coverage for 2018. Through the remainder of 2017, Humana remains committed to serving its current members across 11 states where it offers Individual Commercial products. And, as it has done in the past, Humana will work closely with its state partners as it navigates this process.
Again, it's important to stress that Humana isn't just bailing on exchange participation, but to the best of my knowledge, they're pulling up stakes off-excahnge as well.
So The Plague is wreaking havoc on the world's population. Maybe Super Flu has killed millions, or some unknown biological agent is causing people to snap and kill each other. Heck, maybe we even have a good old fashioned Zombie Apocalypse on our hands. Either way, it's safe to say that for most of humanity, these are not fun times. How could things get much worse, you ask?
By the revelation that the disease in question has been manufactured by genetic engineering, and possibly is distributed by humans. The untold amount of death and destruction has been directly caused by the foolish or malicious action of Man himself.
It may have been designed for use as a biological weapon, or an unexpected result of an experiment gone wrong. Perhaps we just shouldn't have let monkeys watch TV for too long. However it came to be, it has now been unleashed on humanity at large, and has almost certainly gone far beyond what its designers had originally intended.
There's been a lot of talk, by myself and others, about just which populations would be screwed over by a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Analysts, reporters and pundits have sliced and diced the numbers every which way...by race, income level, geography and of course political leanings.
Of course, this gets awfully messy right out of the gate because some ACA provisions apply to everyone in the country, such as the cap removal on annual/lifetime coverage limits; the reassurance that you can't be denied coverage for having pre-existing conditions (which applies to those covered by employer insurance as well, I should note, since many of them may have to switch jobs or be without one at some point in their lives), and so on. Other benefits apply to subgroups which aren't talked about much, such as the Medicare fund being extended by years and the Medicare Part D "donut hole" being closed.
The Trump administration has pulled the plug on all Obamacare outreach and advertising in the crucial final days of the 2017 enrollment season, according to sources at Health and Human Services and on Capitol Hill.
Even ads that had already been placed and paid for have been pulled, the sources told POLITICO.
...Individuals may still sign up for Obamacare plans until the Jan. 31 deadline — but the Trump administration isn't advertising that fact any longer.
It is also halting all media outreach designed to spur signups in the days leading up to the deadline. Emails are no longer being sent out to individuals who visited HealthCare.gov, the enrollment website, to encourage them to finish signing up. Those emails had proven highly successful in getting stragglers to complete enrollment before the deadline.
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a consumer group that supports the law, called the decision "a mean-spirited effort that can only result in fewer people getting coverage who need it."
President Trump called my cellphone to say that the health-care bill was dead
President Trump called me on my cellphone on Friday afternoon at 3:31 p.m. At first I thought it was a reader with a complaint since it was a blocked number.
Instead, it was the president calling from the Oval Office. His voice was even, his tone muted. He did not bury the lede.
“Hello, Bob,” Trump began. “So, we just pulled it.”
...The Democrats, he said, were to blame.
...Trump said he would not put the bill on the floor in the coming weeks. Instead, he is willing to wait and watch the current law continue and, in his view, encounter problems. And he believes Democrats will eventually want to work with him on some kind of legislative fix to Obamacare, although he did not say when that would be.
