How deep is public support for a broad public option in health insurance?

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In polling about U.S. healthcare, the prospect of a “public option” for health insurance, open to all Americans regardless of whether they have access to employer-sponsored insurance, generally scores high. Here is the top-line response to a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll conducted in January 2020:

Looking beneath the hood of that apparent relative consensus, a research team led by Adrianna McIntyre of Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health conducted a poll in November/December 2020 that probed attitudes toward government that underlie responses to health reforms including a public option — specifically, a Medicare buy-in for people under age 65. The researchers published an analysis* in Milbank Quarterly this month. While top-line results were similar to KFF’s, the researchers note:

An overwhelming majority of Democrats (86%) report believing that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure universal health insurance coverage; only 11% of Republicans hold the same view. Most Democrats (71%) also report that they would prefer a health insurance system run mostly by the government, while a similar share of Republicans (78%) would prefer a system based mostly on private health insurance. Two-thirds of Democrats (67%) believe the federal government should be more involved in health care in the future, but over half of their Republican counterparts (56%) believe it should be less involved. Prior work has also found that while a large majority of Democrats (65%) believe the government would do a better job than private health insurance plans at reducing the nation’s health care costs, significantly fewer Republicans (25%) hold that view.

What's going on in the state-based marketplaces, cont.

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My last post put a spotlight on lagging enrollment growth in the ACA’s 18 state-based marketplaces (SBMs). Enrollment in the SBMs appears on track to drop 2.8% year-over-year, from 2022 to 2023, while enrollment in the 33 states using HealthCare.gov (FFM states) looks to increase by 19.6%. While enrollment growth throughout the pandemic years has been concentrated in states that have refused to enact the ACA Medicaid expansion, enrollment in the 21 FFM states that have expanded Medicaid is up 10.3% year-over-year — perhaps the most pointed contrast with the SBM states. Longer term, while growth in the current SBEs is up 6.4% since 2020, the all-state increase during those pandemic years is 43.3%.

Let me say at the outset before diving in below that I think in my last post I may have got the emphases wrong, in that greater market penetration in SBM states in years prior to the pandemic may be a major factor. As of 2021, the uninsured rates in the SBM states were significantly lower, not only than in states that have not expanded Medicaid as you would expect, but also than in expansion FFM states. The same is true of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s estimates of the percentage of subsidy-eligible state residents who enrolled in marketplace coverage in each state in 2020. Moreover, in 2022, drops in the state unemployment rate were steeper on average in SBM states than in FFM states. That suggests a reduced pool of people needing marketplace coverage. On the other hand, UI rates remain higher on average in SBM states than in FFM states.

With the exception of Idaho, the states running their own SBMs are “blue” states that have invested considerable effort, and often state funds, in making their marketplaces as affordable and accessible as possible. They have variously implemented state-funded supplemental subsidies, individual mandates (requiring state residents to obtain insurance or pay a penalty), reinsurance programs, public option plans, standardized plans, active oversight of participating insurers, and strict silver loading (requiring insurers directly or indirectly, to price gold plans below or on par with silver) — not to mention the trouble and expense of launching and administering an exchange.

Conditions in every state are different, and the SBEs, as noted in the prior post, outperformed the HealthCare.gov states during the pre-pandemic Trump years and had proportionately smaller uninsured populations going into the pandemic. Nonetheless, the weaker enrollment growth over several years in the SBEs is worth scrutinizing. If it persists, state governments intent on improving their marketplac

What's going on in the state-based marketplaces?

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While enrollment in the ACA marketplace as a whole in the Open Enrollment Period for 2023 is on pace to finish about 13% higher than in OEP 2022, enrollment in the eighteen states that run state-based marketplaces (SBMs) is on course to come in about 3% below the OEP 2022 total.

As my last post emphasized, enrollment growth throughout the pandemic has been overwhelmingly concentrated in states that have refused to enact the ACA Medicaid expansion. In those states, about 40% of enrollees would be eligible for Medicaid if their states had enacted the expansion, and the American Rescue Plan Act made a benchmark silver plan free to almost all of them. As of this past week’s enrollment snapshot, enrollment in the twelve current nonexpansion states is up 23% year-over-year.

But enrollment in twenty-one expansion states that use the federal HealthCare.gov platform is also up by 10%. That throws the apparent enrollment decrease (barring last-minute surges or Week 9 reporting lags) in the SBMs into sharp relief and has marketplace watchers scratching their heads. (See the bottom of this post by Charles Gaba for breakouts of 2023 enrollment to date by exchange type.)

In fact, throughout the pandemic years, enrollment growth in the states currently running their own marketplaces has collectively lagged far behind growth in the overall market. Enrollment in these eighteen states is up 6% since OEP 2020, compared to 43% for the marketplace as a whole.

ACA marketplace enrollment in nonexpansion states is up 73% since 2020

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CMS dropped its next-to-last snapshot of ACA marketplace enrollment for 2023 today. Enrollment remains on pace for a 13% year-over-year increase.

Charles Gaba has year-over-year breakouts for each state as well as for HealthCare.gov states, state-based exchanges (SBEs), and states that have refused to enact the ACA Medicaid expansion (or, in the case of South Dakota, not yet enacted an expansion that will kick off this summer). Salient facts among those breakouts:

• Enrollment in the 18 SBEs is down slightly (2.8%).

• Enrollment in all states that have enacted the ACA Medicaid expansion is up 2.6%

• Enrollment in 12 nonexpansion states is up 23.4%.

• Enrollment in Texas is up 32% — probably triggered in part by a state law effectively requiring insurers to price gold plans lower than silver plans.

I don’t think we’ve fully fathomed the enrollment growth in nonexpansion states during the pandemic years. Since the end of the Open Enrollment Period for 2020, which ended December 15, 2019 in HealthCare.gov states (e.g., in all nonexpansion states), enrollment in the twelve states that have not enacted the expansion to date has increased by 73%. By the end of Open Enrollment on January 15, the increase will probably top 75%. Florida and Texas alone have added more than 2.4 million enrollees in those three years. The twelve states together have added 3.6 million enrollees and account for 55% of enrollment nationally.

Evolving choice in the ACA marketplace

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Over the years, I have devoted many posts to tracking the percentage of low-income ACA marketplace enrollees who avail themselves of the strong Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) available with silver plans at incomes up to 200% FPL by choosing silver plans. TLDR: the percentage is high, but not high enough.

Since October 2017, I have also devoted many posts to tracking the effects of silver loading. In that month, recall, Trump cut off direct reimbursement of insurers for the value of CSR and thus ushered in silver loading era — that is, pricing the value of CSR directly into silver plans alone (since CSR is available only with silver plans), creating discounts in bronze and gold plans (see note at bottom*). Trends to watch have included

• Silver plan selection at incomes above 200% FPL, where CSR is weak-to-nonexistent. TLDR: it fell off a cliff in 2018 and years following.

• Gold plan selection at incomes above 200% FPL. TLDR: it’s far higher than pre-2018, but not high enough.

• The relentless math that pushes most enrollees (including me) with income above 200% FPL into bronze plans (notwithstanding deductibles averaging more than $7,000), except in states where gold plans are priced below benchmark silver.

• Gold plan selection at incomes over 200% FPL in states where gold plans are consistently available at premiums below that of the benchmark silver plan, either by state government design or through insurers’ pricing decisions. TLDR: Gold selection in those states very high, and roughly proportional to the degree of gold discount.

The broad parameters of rational choice in metal levels have been clear since 2018, and a majority of enrollees, albeit too small a majority, have hewn to them. Usually, the optimal choices are silver at incomes up to 200% FPL, bronze at incomes above 200% FPL, and gold where silver loading or insurer choice (often monopoly or dominant-insurer choice) make gold affordable. Two recent factors that have had an impact: 1) the American Rescue Plan Act’s subsidy boosts, which made silver an easier reach for some enrollees at all income levels, modestly boosting silver selection in 2022;  and 2) a growing trickle of states requiring insurers to price gold plans below benchmark.

Here is how metal level choice shook out in the 33 states using HealthCare.gov** (the federal exchange, as opposed to a state-based exchange) in 2022. For the first time, CMS in 2022 included income categories above 400% FPL, reflecting ARPA’s removal of the former 400% FPL income cap on subsidies. I have excluded enrollees with income below 100% FPL, where a relatively high percentage of unsubsidized enrollees somewhat scrambles choices. Those enrollees who did not report income are also excluded.

Looking Backward: 2023--2014 in the ACA marketplace

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This morning I happened on a January 2014 post of mine that engaged the question of whether the ACA marketplace structure might foster productive state experimentation over time. Austin Frakt engaged the question and usefully compressed my forecast as follows:

First a ground pre-prepped for de facto compromise has been laid — in the state exchanges. […] [S]tarting in 2017, states can apply for waivers by submitting alternative plans that purport to meet the ACA’s coverage benchmarks (in 2011, Obama pronounced himself willing to move the waiver start date to 2014 []).  On the Medicaid front, the Obama administration has shown itself willing to accept a wide range [of] conservative experiment[s]; the same will doubtless prove true for the exchanges if any GOP-run states want to try.  The ACA might be viewed as a multi-state laboratory waiting to happen — with no need for knock-down-drag-out fights in Congress. Governors willing to deal in good faith can work quietly with HHS — or hand-in-glove, if a Republican becomes president in 2017.

It took a failed Republican repeal attempt and years of regulatory sabotage from the Trump administration to get us there (along with the 2017 start date for state "innovation waivers"), but we're at a point where state experiments are proliferating — in at least one blood-red state as well as in blue. Consider: