While the ACA appears to have escaped repeal for the time being, the ACA marketplace remains under apparent and threatened assault from the Trump administration -- which, after all, has to administer it.
The avowals of Trump and other Republican leaders, including Ryan and McConnell, that the marketplace will implode or is in a death spiral; the withdrawal of advertising for the marketplace in the closing weeks of open enrollment last January; the threat not to enforce the individual mandate; the possibility of destroying the marketplace immediately by stopping federal payments to insurers for Cost Sharing Reduction subsidies; and, most recently, the walk-back of avowals that Ryan's repeal bill is dead -- all these factors have left insurers and therefore the marketplace in a shaky position. Insurers may withdraw, and premiums are likely to spike, as they did last year.
Even if Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election, the marketplace would be in need of fixes. The risk pool is sicker, older and smaller than originally envisioned. The subsidies are smaller than they should be. Millions whose employers offer nominally "affordable" individual insurance but unaffordable family insurance are denied marketplace subsidies through the family glitch. The trio of risk control programs designed to smooth insurers' losses in a new kind of market expired too quickly, and one -- the risk corridor program -- was sabotaged by Republicans.
Given the need for fixes, and the at least momentary acknowledgment by Republican leadership that "we're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," as Paul Ryan rather astonishingly put it last Friday, a number of progressives have started to scope out possible means by which Democrats in Congress could win Republican support for legislation that would improve competition, participation and affordability in the marketplace. If such a deal were possible, it would entail agreeing to provisions that would reshape the marketplace more to Republicans' liking. These might include:
The avowals of Trump and other Republican leaders, including Ryan and McConnell, that the marketplace will implode or is in a death spiral; the withdrawal of advertising for the marketplace in the closing weeks of open enrollment last January; the threat not to enforce the individual mandate; the possibility of destroying the marketplace immediately by stopping federal payments to insurers for Cost Sharing Reduction subsidies; and, most recently, the walk-back of avowals that Ryan's repeal bill is dead -- all these factors have left insurers and therefore the marketplace in a shaky position. Insurers may withdraw, and premiums are likely to spike, as they did last year.
Even if Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election, the marketplace would be in need of fixes. The risk pool is sicker, older and smaller than originally envisioned. The subsidies are smaller than they should be. Millions whose employers offer nominally "affordable" individual insurance but unaffordable family insurance are denied marketplace subsidies through the family glitch. The trio of risk control programs designed to smooth insurers' losses in a new kind of market expired too quickly, and one -- the risk corridor program -- was sabotaged by Republicans.
Given the need for fixes, and the at least momentary acknowledgment by Republican leadership that "we're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," as Paul Ryan rather astonishingly put it last Friday, a number of progressives have started to scope out possible means by which Democrats in Congress could win Republican support for legislation that would improve competition, participation and affordability in the marketplace. If such a deal were possible, it would entail agreeing to provisions that would reshape the marketplace more to Republicans' liking. These might include:
