Insurer costs vary widely in ACA exchange: GAO report
Healthcare DIVE January 30, 2019
Dive Brief:
- A new Government Accountability Office report seeks to explain how insurers have fared selling plans in the Affordable Care Act’s online exchanges by analyzing what drives their decisions to sell plans, set premiums and plan designs. The report also considers how claims cost influence those outcomes.
- In addition to consulting academic papers and other studies, the authors interviewed nine insurers selling plans in at least one of the following five states: California, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Mississippi.
- Costs were higher than expected in the initial years of the marketplace and continued to vary widely, while some had large swings from year to year. Insurers noted that state requirements sometimes resulted in reduced participation in the exchanges and...