Deadline Extended For Insurers To Decide On Obamacare Exchanges

Insurers have to make decisions about what markets they will offer plans in and what their prices will be early.

Given the recent uncertainty in the markets, the Trump administration is giving insurance companies three extra weeks to decide where they will offer plans and how much they will charge.

This is good, but it doesn’t mean much unless the Trump administration confirms cost sharing reduction payments will be made to insurers.

Part of why insurers are charging more and pulling out of markets is instability (uncertainty about the law, uncertainty about payments, and uncertainty about what other insurers will do).

At this point, the only thing that can fix the instability is a guarantee from Trump (and ideally legislation from Congress as well) that insurers won’t have the rug pulled out from under them.

This is what will help to keep premiums steady (claims are already steady, so it’s now essentially just about instability in premium prices).

Learn more at NPR’s Trump Administration Extends Deadline For Insurers To Decide On Obamacare Markets.

The data shows the idea of an ObamaCare death spiral is a myth. Analysis of premium and claims data from 2011 – 2016 found that insurer financial performance indeed worsened in 2014 and 2015 with the opening of the exchange markets, but showed signs of improving in 2016.