Reports of Obamacare’s death are greatly exaggerated: All counties to be covered for 2018
Reports of Obamacare’s death are greatly exaggerated: All counties to be covered for 2018
Obamacare has now obtained an insurer for every county in the country, defying Republican claims that the program is collapsing. As reported by The Hill, “At one point or another over the past year, more than 80 counties have been at risk of having no ObamaCare insurer on the exchanges in 2018.” On Thursday (Aug. 24), the last “bare” county, in Ohio, was covered by insurer CareSource. Insurance companies have until September 27 to sign contracts, so it is not yet guaranteed there will be no bare counties for 2018.
As you no doubt remember, Chicken Little Republicans have proclaimed the sky to be falling ever since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. We were subject to ridiculous predictions about “death panels,” skyrocketing premiums, predictions of no fall in the uninsured, horror stories that weren’t, and of course the ever-popular “job killing” meme.
Instead, three years of the ACA (Q4 2013 to Q4 2016) brought the uninsured rate for adults 18-64 down from 20.8% to 13.1% (but an increase to 14.2% in Q2 2017) while unemployment fell from 6.7% in December 2013 to 4.7% in December 2016 (and 4.3% in July 2017). In addition, personal bankruptcies fell from 1.5 million in 2010 to just 771,000 in 2016, according to Consumer Reports.
As the recent increase in the uninsured rate shows, the ACA is still vulnerable to sabotage by the Republicans. Given that the increase occurred disproportionately among younger adults, Gallup speculates that uncertainty about the consequences for disregarding the individual mandate may explain a large amount of the change. There remain several routes for sabotage to take place. At the same time, there is a bipartisan effort in the Senate to stabilize the individual marketplace, potentially with explicit funding for individual subsidies.
Constant vigilance!
h/t David Ayon
Oh wow Ken:
Having written on the topic a number of times, been the punching bag for it, and explained many of the nooks and crannies; I read this and thought briefly how well you knew the topic. π It is a good post and informative the same as true. Much of the recent price increases besides being the result of the healthcare industry raising prices is also the result of Republicans blocking the Risk Corridor program. The results of their efforts did cause increased premiums, Coops to go bankrupt, insurance companies to leave the exchanges, and losses. Trumps threats will impact premiums even if he does not cut CSRs as insurance companies will either not trust him or use the threat as an excuse. States could still over ride the increases.
It’s amazing that nobody seems to have noticed that Republican sabotage efforts already in operation are costing millions buying insurance through the exchanges hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year that they should not have to pay. We talk about the effect on Obamacare — the abstract policy stuff — and we know about the millions denied Medicaid coverage by Republicans in 20 states, but actual financial damage is happening right now to people buying individual policies because the denial of funding and threats of denial cause premiums to rise due to excess uncertainty. People are being charged more than they should be right now, as we speak, and have been overcharged for some time — and it is being done to them deliberately not only by Trump but also by all Republicans in Congress (including the recent “profiles in courage” who voted against repeal this time).
If the Democratic leadership could (1) recognize this and (2) make Americans aware of it, the deliberate sabotage should be career-ending for many Republican Senators and Representatives.