Rural Americans had few health insurers to choose from even before Obamacare, but some suburban and urban parts of the Southeast will be in the same fix next year. In southeast Florida, consumers in counties near Naples and Fort Myers will have only one marketplace insurer – Florida Blue – next year, unless other insurers step in.
“There are some headwinds, but it’s not a question of whether the market will stabilize but how quickly and how well,” said Dr. Hempstead.
Strong winds are already blowing toward Arizona’s Pinal County, southeast of Phoenix, health care advocates say. Nearly 10,000 people enrolled in Obamacare marketplace policies this year and about 85% received a federal subsidy.
In 2017, Pinal stands to lose its only two insurers – UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Arizona.
“Clearly this is a big concern for consumers,” said Allen Gjersvig, director of navigator and enrollment services for the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers. He said he is hopeful, but not confident, that another insurer will step in.
Neighboring Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, is expected to have just two relatively small insurers left on its marketplace next year. Mr. Gjersvig said that he questions whether those two – Cigna and Phoenix Health Plan – will have enough doctors and hospitals under contract to handle their new members after larger rival Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Arizona gives up its 40,000 customers.
At least a dozen other counties in Arizona will be left with just one health insurer, he said.
Arizona had eight insurers operating in various parts of the state this year, but four are leaving entirely – Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, Humana, and Health Choice. Two more, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Health Net, are scaling back their participation.
Despite the problems with the marketplaces, Mr. Gjersvig said thousands of people have gained coverage through them and he is confident they will survive.
“We do not see this as a death knell for the marketplace,” he said.
Tammie King, an insurance agent in Columbia, S.C., is less sure how insurer departures will affect consumers in the Palmetto State. Pullouts by UnitedHealthcare and Aetna mean only one carrier in the state in 2017 – Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina.
That’s a concern in Columbia, S.C., because the Blue Cross plan does not include one of the biggest hospitals, Lexington Medical Center, and its affiliated physicians, she said.
“People will be left unable to see the doctors they are now using,” she added.
Ms. King said she worried the Blue Cross plan will use its monopoly power to further reduce the number of doctors and hospitals in its network and limit its choice of prescription drugs. “You can’t blame them because … they have to do something to control costs,” she said.
This story appears courtesy of Kaiser Health News, a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.