Will Some American Counties Be Left Without Health Insurance in 2018?



It doesn’t appear that Congress and the White House will commit to funding crucial payments to compensate insurers for subsidizing out-of-pocket costs for some lower-income enrollees. The damage to insurance markets could be catastrophic if the approximately $7 billion in payments to insurers aren’t funded, and if core ObamaCare provisions — like the individual mandate to buy insurance — aren’t enforced.

The immense uncertainty about the future of ObamaCare has some areas wondering whether they’ll soon be without any insurance plans to buy on the healthcare exchanges.

Insurance companies are in the midst of filing premium requests for the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) marketplaces. But before seeking those premium hikes, they’ll have to decide whether to continue offering coverage at all.

According to The Hill, for some counties in particular, the threat is looming like a dark cloud. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City announced it was exiting the marketplace, leaving 25 counties in Missouri without any carrier willing to sell ACA plans for 2018. Medica and Gundersen Health Plan are the only insurers selling ObamaCare plans in most Iowa counties, and according to their spokesmen, they haven’t made a final decision yet on whether they will stay or leave. Aetna announced it would exit its last ObamaCare markets, which included Nebraska, leaving Medica as the only carrier on the ObamaCare exchanges selling plans to the state. In addition, in Knoxville Tennessee, Humana announced it wouldn’t sell insurance on the exchanges leaving the Knoxville area without any plans for 2018. 

Obviously, more insurers could flee the ObamaCare markets if payments to insurers aren’t funded and if the individual mandate isn’t enforced — or if the uncertainty continues. There is no clear replacement path forward from Congress and the White House, and there will be no final decision for insurers’ intentions for selling plans until the fall. As a result, insurance commissioners will be scrambling to lure other insurers into the area behind the scenes.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the Nation Ready for its First Black Woman Governor?

Image
Stacey Abrams speaking at the Democratic National Convention The  Washington Post   describes Stacey Abrams as "a Yale-trained lawyer and business executive who writes romance novels on the side." Perhaps that definition will need to be expounded pending the results of Georgia's upcoming gubernatorial election. There is a possibility that we could be referring to Stacey Abrams as that state's first black governor and the nation's first black woman governor.  Abrams, the 43-year-old House minority leader is seen as a rising star and one of the future leaders of the Democratic Party. Although she enters the race as the favorite for the nomination, she also faces an uphill battle to the governor's mansion, and a victory would be a huge win for Democrats who haven't won a statewide office in Georgia since 2006.   Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams Honored  by Caroline Kennedy for Political Leadership Abrams is known for her willi...
Read more

How State and Local Governments Impoverish African-American Neighborhoods

Image
by Nina Kennedy This article was written to recount my first-hand experience with the heartbreak of American racism. Soon after my father’s death I learned that I was the owner of a house in Charleston, West Virginia, which had been built by my grandfather, Dr. Henry Floyd Gamble, who was one of the first African-American graduates of the Yale Medical School. He set up a practice in Charleston as the first African-American surgeon, obstetrician, and gynecologist in the region, and founded the local chapter of the National Medical Association – the African-American version of the American Medical Association since the AMA did not accept African-Americans as members. He resided in the home he built with my grandmother and his four offspring, two of whom were adults by the time he and my grandmother married. When he died, he bequeathed the property to three of his children: my aunt Katherine, my uncle Howard, and my mother. Upon my mother’s death, her portion of the property went to ...
Read more