Comment: The ordinary, healthy people Obamacare exchanges need to work aren’t buying. “Exchanges” that were sold as spurring competition, lowering costs, and helping Americans in general connect with better, more affordable insurance, are instead already collapsing into a giant new welfare / subsidy program. Ordinary, intelligent, non-desperate Americans aren’t signing up. Only 2% of the exchanges’ clientele aren’t receiving Obamacare’s welfare subsidies–that’s brutal. Insurance ‘death spiral’ talk is swirling again.
“While health benefit exchanges have succeeded in signing up very low-income individuals, they struggle to attract middle and higher income members, a new study shows.”
“At the close of open enrollment in 2015, the 37 states that use the federal marketplace had enrolled 76 percent of eligible individuals with incomes from $11,700 to $17,655, but participation rates declined dramatically as incomes grow, according to a study by Avalere Health. Only 2 percent of individual enrollees make more than $46,680, or 400 percent of the federal poverty line. That’s when subsidies shut off, although amounts go higher if individuals have dependents.”
Health exchanges struggle to sign up middle-income folks
Kathy Robertson, Senior Staff Writer- Sacramento Business Journal
Mar 25, 2015, 2:43pm PDT