In their six-year battle to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republicans could find no better example of the law’s failure than in Pinal County, Ariz., where thousands of residents faced having no health insurers to choose from on the government exchange.
The last insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, dropped plans to abandon Pinal County in 2017, but only after the state talked the company into remaining because everyone else pulled out.
Like other insurers, Blue Cross had suffered heavy losses in the region on individual marketplace plans in 2014 and 2015. Now it may seek a significant rate increase in order to maintain its ability to offer insurance plans in the county.
House and Senate GOP lawmakers last week wasted no time shining a bright spotlight on Pinal County, using it to argue that it signifies the unraveling of the law.
“No one wants to sell Obamacare insurance to the people that live there,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a medical doctor who often leads Senate GOP criticism of the law. “It is an Obamacare ghost town. The others may be Obamacare wastelands, no-man lands, but this is an Obamacare ghost town. So, what does president Obama say about that?”
Pinal County is just one of many areas facing few or no insurance coverage choices on the Obamacare marketplace and much higher rages.
Cynthia Cox, who is the Kaiser Family Foundation’s associate director for the Program for the Study of Health Reform and Private Insurance, said roughly one in five people on the health insurance exchanges would have the choice of just one health insurer in 2017.
That’s 2.3 million people, compared to just 300,000 in 2016 who had only one insurer available on the exchange.
Insurers have dropped out after suffering significant losses from covering sicker customers who sign up in greater numbers than young and healthy people.
“This raises awareness about the fact that obviously the stability of the exchange markets really depends on private insurers being willing to participate,” Cox told the Washington Examiner. “And the fact that they have lost significant amounts of money on the exchange is concerning.”
Senate Republicans have responded by introducing legislation that would suspend the law’s individual mandate when premiums rise more than 10 percent or become unaffordable.
Democrats have so far continued to defend the law and have little to say directly about counties like Pinal, where the healthcare exchange has been on the verge of collapse.
Instead, they have focused on statistics showing more people have health insurance in the United States than ever before, thanks mostly to the expansion of Medicaid for the poor. They also point to new provisions allowing young adults to remain on a parent’s plan and the ban on denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., when asked about the shrinking health insurance marketplace, blamed GOP lawmakers, who he said would not cooperate with Democrats to make legislative improvements to the law.
“Obamacare has been terrific for this country,” Reid told the Washington Examiner. “Is it perfect? No. But if we’d had just a tiny bit of cooperation, just a little bit of cooperation from the Republicans, it would be better. But all they’ve done is wish it hadn’t passed because it’s been one of the most substantial things to happen in America since Social Security and Medicare.”
Republicans scoffed at the idea of fixing Obamacare. They want to repeal and replace it and, in the House, have come up with a plan to repeal the individual mandate and provide tax subsidies for the purchase of health insurance, which could be sold across state lines. The GOP contends their plan would ensure more health insurance choices and improve competition and lower prices.
House Speaker Paul Ryan told the Examiner he won’t support legislation to repair Obamacare or stop what he called its “inevitable” failure.
“No amount of tinkering around the margins was going to salvage Obamacare from imploding under its own weight,” Ryan said.
