Individual Insurance Market Performance in Early 2019

(By Rachel Fehr, Cynthia Cox, and Larry Levitt for Kaiser Family Foundation)

The early years of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges and broader ACA-compliant individual market were marked by volatility. Markets in some parts of the country have remained fragile, with little competition, an insufficient number of healthy enrollees to balance those who are sick, and high premiums as a result. However, by 2017, the individual market generally had begun to stabilize. Despite this growing stability, in 2018 insurers raised benchmark premiums by an average of 34% in response to policy changes such as the Trump Administration’s decision to cease cost-sharing subsidy payments and reduce funding for outreach, and uncertainty over whether the ACA as a whole would remain law. These premium hikes, along with slow claims growth, made 2018 the most profitable year for individual market insurers since the ACA went into effect.  Continue reading article here…

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