New Analysis: With Proper Support, the ACA Marketplaces Are Sustainable in Long Run
<p>With the Affordable Care Act (ACA) under near-constant siege by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, insurers selling plans in the individual markets are having a difficult time predicting their enrollments, pricing their products accordingly, and ensuring profitability.</p><p>But if the health care law manages to survive and the administration is willing to enforce its key provisions, evidence suggests the ACA marketplaces are “inherently sustainable in the long run,” according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. Based on their analysis of health plans’ financial performance in 2015 — the most difficult year to date for the ACA’s insurance exchanges — Virginia Commonwealth University’s Michael J. McCue and Wake Forest University School of Law’s Mark A. Hall find that insurers in the top quarter of the individual market were comfortably profitable, even if those in the bottom quarter did much worse than the ACA market average.</p>
<p>As low-performing insurers leave the market or better adapt their strategies to the health law’s market rules, overall financial performance is improving substantially, the authors say.</p>