State-Based Marketplaces Look for Financing Stability
Over the past few months, state-based health insurance marketplaces have navigated a largely successful second open enrollment period and a mostly uneventful first tax season for marketplace consumers. Yet they continue to face important challenges, such as determining the size of their operating budgets and how to finance them.<br /><br />
In a new blog post, Sean Miskell, Justin Giovannelli, Kevin Lucia, and Sabrina Corlette of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reform explain that as federal funding provided under the Affordable Care Act is spent down, state-based marketplaces have to raise their own revenue for operations. While most states and the federal marketplace are charging insurers a percentage of premiums or a per-member, per-month fee, fluctuations in enrollment and premiums make it difficult to predict revenue. The authors provide a state-by-state breakdown of how states are approaching this challenge.