A growing number of people in Obamacare are finding out their health
insurance plans will disappear from the program next year, forcing them
to find new coverage even as options shrink and prices rise.
At
least 1.4 million people in 32 states will lose the Obamacare plan they
have now, according to state officials contacted by Bloomberg. That’s
largely caused by Aetna Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and some state or
regional insurers quitting the law’s markets for individual coverage.
Sign-ups for Obamacare coverage begin next month. Fallout from the
quitting insurers has emerged as the latest threat to the law, which is
also a major focal point in the U.S. presidential election. While it’s
not clear what all the consequences of the departing insurers will be,
interviews with regulators and insurance customers suggest that plans
will be fewer and more expensive, and may not include the same doctors
and hospitals.
It may also mean that instead of growing in 2017, Obamacare could shrink. As of March 31, the law covered 11.1 million people;
an Oct. 13 S&P Global Ratings report predicted that enrollment next
year will range from an 8 percent decline to a 4 percent gain.
Vanishing Plan
Last
year in Minnesota, Theresa Puffer, 61, used Obamacare to sign up for a
BlueCross BlueShield plan after leaving her job following a skin cancer
diagnosis. “I would have had a hard time finding any sort of coverage
before the ACA,” Puffer said by phone.
Next year, Puffer’s plan is
disappearing from Obamacare -- making her one of about 20,000
Minnesotans in the same situation. To make matters worse, premiums for
other plans in the state will rise by at least 50 percent, though
subsidies under the law can help cushion the blow.
“Trying to
determine which would be the best plan for my situation is not easy,”
Puffer said. Her dermatologist appears to be out of network in other
plans, she said. “I’m willing to pay a higher premium to see him,
because when you have cancer you want to stay with the same group of
doctors,” she said. “I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out what
my options are.”
Bloomberg
contacted officials in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and the 1.4
million-person estimate includes 32 states and only plans sold on the
individual “exchange” markets. In Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Missouri,
insurers have pulled out, but regulators couldn’t or wouldn’t say how
many people are affected. Three states didn’t provide sufficient data.
Eleven
states said they weren’t affected. In Washington, D.C., because one
insurer withdrew some of its offerings, about 7,800 customers will need
to choose new plans.
Normal Disruption
The
U.S. agency that oversees Obamacare has said that some disruption is
normal, and that choosing a new plan can help people get the best deal.
“It’s
part of the normal business cycle for insurers to discontinue, change,
and replace plans from year to year,” Benjamin Wakana, a spokesman for
the Department of Health and Human Services, said by e-mail on Oct. 5.
“Such changes don’t prevent people from obtaining coverage. People can
shop for new coverage through a transparent market.”
HHS said
Thursday that it will contact people losing their coverage and encourage
them to sign up with new plans. The law requires all Americans to have
insurance or pay a fine.
Nationwide estimates of the number of
people losing their current plans are higher. For example, Charles Gaba,
who tracks the law at ACASignups.net, estimates that 2 million to 2.5
million people in the U.S. will lose their current plans, compared with 2
million a year ago. Gaba’s estimate is based on insurance company membership data.
Fewer Choices
For
the people losing plans, there are fewer and fewer choices. One
estimate by the Kaiser Family Foundation predicts that for at least 19
percent of the people in Obamacare’s individual market next year there
will be only one insurer to choose from.
In North Carolina, for
example, a BlueCross BlueShield insurer will be the only option in 95 of
the state’s 100 counties after Aetna and UnitedHealth said this year
that they would leave. That will leave 284,000 people looking for a new
plan, according to the state.
“Without any significant statutory
and regulatory changes on the federal and state levels, we may face the
crisis again,” said North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin,
a Democrat who’s up for election this year. “There needs to be a
wholesale re-evaluation by leaders in Washington.”
Losing Access
In
Tennessee, UnitedHealth and the state’s BlueCross BlueShield plan are
pulling back, and about 117,000 people will lose the plans they have
now.
Amanda Page Cornett, a 34-year-old musician and athletic
trainer in Nashville, is among them. For 2015, Cornett was careful to
pick a BlueCross BlueShield plan that covered specialists at Vanderbilt
Health, to treat nerve pain stemming from a 2013 accident. Her condition
worsened recently, she said, and she’s worried about losing access to
her doctor.
“I’m hopeful that he’s going to be able to help me,”
she said of her current physician. “I feel like now I have two and a
half months to figure it out before they shut me out.”
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