Dive Brief:
- While ACA health plan enrollment was considered a success this year, with the number of enrollees increasing to 12.7 million for 2016 compared to 11.7 million for 2015, experts suggest the uninsured rate will be increasingly difficult to impact any further.
- Most of the people who are both interested and qualified have already signed up, and the remaining 30 million or so uninsured present a more difficult challenge due to lack of interest or barriers to obtaining coverage.
- Though the ACA is falling far short of achieving universal coverage, that was expected, according to Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Dive Insight:
The slowdown in reducing the uninsured rate, while expected, begs the question of whether the ACA's best years are already behind it. Unless any new solutions are presented, there may be little left the ACA can do with regards to the remaining 30 million uninsured people because many of them have reasons for remaining so.
The people who remain uninsured fall into three main groups, according to a 2015 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation:
- Those who lack coverage because their state has opted not to expand Medicaid under the ACA;
- Those who cannot get coverage due to their immigration status; and
- Those who qualify for some form of coverage but aren't taking it.
Experts say potential solutions could require further Medicaid expansion, immigration reform, and further financial assistance to the middle class, which lags in enrollment compared to the more highly assisted lower class.