Insurers Selling More of Their Individual Health Plans in ACA Marketplaces
<p>New research from The Commonwealth Fund finds that insurers participating in the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces appear to be competing well on price and are increasingly selling their individual health plans through the exchanges, instead of outside them. It also finds that measures designed to encourage marketplace insurers to enroll healthier as well as sicker people seem to be working.</p><p>The new study, by Michael J. McCue of Virginia Commonwealth University and Mark A. Hall of Wake Forest University, shows that the proportion of individual health insurance plans sold exclusively outside the marketplaces fell from 28 percent in 2014 to 17 percent this year. Moreover, lower-priced bronze-level plans—which provide the least amount of coverage and tend to attract healthier consumers—are equally popular on and off the marketplaces, the authors say. More expensive gold and platinum plans are much more prevalent off the marketplaces. </p>
<p>“Collectively, the data in this report make a strong case for the viability of the ACA marketplaces,” said Sara Collins, The Commonwealth Fund’s Vice President for Health Care Coverage and Access. </p>