Personalities Matter! (Even at the Federal Level)
Now that we have a new President-Elect, Donald Trump, a pretty huge amount of uncertainty has filtered into the healthcare (and health insurance) business.
Now that we have a new President-Elect, Donald Trump, a pretty huge amount of uncertainty has filtered into the healthcare (and health insurance) business.
I have been pummeled with many, many different reactions since the Nov. 8 election and more questions than I can shake a stick at. I suspect my next few blog posts will be about roughly these same topics. But, before we dive into the questions, let me tell you a bit of what I’ve figured out so far about the future of health insurance and the Affordable Care Act (healthcare reform law).
Note from Mike: I’m sifting through the information coming out about the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare and healthcare in a Trump presidency. I’ll be back soon to offer my take on it, but in the meantime, see this Q&A on what Blue Cross is doing right now.
In my last blog post, I gave details about how much rates for individual customers’ health insurance are going up next year and why. I promised do a future blog about not just how much premiums cost, but how much financial protection the federally-designed products for 2017 give the average customer. This may get a bit wonky, so please bear with me as you go through.
In January 2010, just a few months before healthcare reform law passed, I got a study by a national actuarial firm that measured the impact of state regulations on health insurance plan pricing. This study showed WIDE variation in the definition of an individual health insurance policy, and how plans were priced, from state to state.
The candidates on the campaign trail have their opinions about how to fix the Affordable Care Act (ACA), how to make health insurance marketplaces work better and how to get everybody insured. Every policy wonk and think tank in America has weighed in on the problem. Of course, their solutions are all in alignment with their institutional biases on how healthcare OUGHT to work in America.