With the Affordable Care Act marketplaces in a precarious position for 2018, some states are taking matters into their own hands.
Insurers are facing heightened uncertainty next year because of efforts to repeal the ACA and questions about funding for cost-sharing reduction payments. Without those key subsidies, the industry has warned that the individual market could collapse.
Seeking to stabilize the marketplaces, three states so far have passed bills seeking to aid health insurers facing high medical costs in the individual markets by setting up reinsurance programs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Others have pushed back deadlines for when insurers must submit filings for 2018.
In Oklahoma, state regulators haven’t decided on many details surrounding its reinsurance program, but they are hoping to request federal funding for the program through an existing ACA waiver option, according to the WSJ.
Minnesota, too, is counting on a federal waiver, though it also sets aside up to $540 million in state money over two years for its reinsurance program. Lawmakers there also attempted to remove essential health benefits requirements for individual market plans, reasoning that it would reduce costs, but were unsuccessful.
In Idaho, the state’s new reinsurance program is a reworked version of a high-risk pool, which will help insurers pay claims for ACA exchange enrollees with certain health conditions, the article says. The state plans to use money from an existing insurance tax to help pay for the program, similar to what Alaska has done.
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Tennessee Insurance Commissioner Julie McPeak, meanwhile, is taking it upon herself to reach out to insurers and encourage them to participate in the state’s exchange next year, the article adds. Those efforts are urgent, as 40,000 Knoxville residents might be left without an on-exchange insurance option next year because of Humana’s decision to exit the exchanges.