Two key concerns about Obamacare insurance exchanges appear to have been successfully addressed in the first two years of exchange business.
A study of consumer behavior and insurance choices by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that 86 percent of consumers had at least three insurance company plans to choose from for the 2015 coverage year. That was up from 70 percent a year earlier. The study only covered the 35 exchanges in states that chose to have the federal government operate the exchanges.
In addition, these options helped keep premium increases down, HHS said. As an example, the average increase for a popular silver plan in those states rose just 2 percent over 2014. When new insurers entered the marketplace in a county, the study said, premiums dropped an average of 8.4 percent.
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The study also noted that when an insurer left a marketplace, premiums rose an average of 12 percent.
"The Marketplaces were established to provide consumers with a transparent, competitive place to shop for health insurance plans," HHS said in a brief announcing the study results. "The structure of the Marketplaces and insurance market reforms were designed to encourage competition among issuers. In 2014, the first year of coverage in the Marketplaces, most consumers had a large number of choices and areas with more competition experienced lower premiums, all other factors equal. The result of expanding issuer participation in 2015 was lower premium increases, which in turn, benefited consumers and public budgets.
"Our analysis of issuer participation and premiums in 2014-2015 suggests that insurance market competition continued to expand in most places."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
