Dive Brief:
- Donald Trump's promise to repeal the ACA upon taking office is sinking in and sparking questions around what impacts will be felt by consumers and the marketplace itself as early as this cycle.
- Conflicting messages are coming as the Obama administration continues to push ACA signups during its final months, while the GOP readies to demolish the ACA come January.
- Questions also abound around how consumers will react and whether the ACA markets will soon see further destabilization.
Dive Insight:
While the general assumption is that the ACA won't officially be demolished overnight, and that some sort of transition period will be involved to avoid sudden displacement of millions from their coverage, that assumption is of little consolation to those who depend on it. It remains to be seen whether damage might quickly be done to the marketplace and to current healthcare law enforcement--intentionally or not--via the stance and handling of the new administration.
Industry stakeholders have suggested things could change even before any policy changes are made if consumers abandon what they presume to be a doomed system or gamble on the individual mandate no longer being enforced to compel them to purchase insurance if they would rather not. There is also the chance that the ACA could soon be in a tailspin if the Trump administration decides to ignore it or artfully tank it. Any of those scenarios could impact risk pools and plan sales for insurers, and thereby determine their business successes or losses, and ultimately their interest in continued participation for however long a marketplace exists.
Signs are mixed. On the one hand, Obamacare enrollment surged the day after Trump's victory, suggesting people may be trying to get coverage and claim subsidies before anything potentially changes or disappears. On the other hand, some analysts predict enrollment is likely to take a hit. Deep Banerjee of S&P Global Ratings said it’s "increasingly likely" that sign-ups will end up at the low end. “The decline could be greater than our downside if the uncertainties around the future of the exchanges completely overshadow the current open enrollment season,” Banerjee's research report stated.
Also, insurers will be making their decisions for 2018 in the near future, leaving little time to digest the impacts of the repeal plans and any official policy changes that come by that time, Bloomberg noted. So far, while insurer stock prices have fluctuated, one insurer seeing signs of trouble ahead is Molina, due to its heavy business in the individual market being at risk.