Insurers Can Make Obamacare Work, IF Congress Was Willing to Help Them

[Bill USA]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/insurers-can-make-obamacare-work-but-they-need-help-from-congress/

When the health insurance startup Oscar lost $92 million selling policies on New York’s insurance exchange last year, CEO Mario Schlosser could have joined the insurance executives blaming Obamacare for their companies’ struggles. Instead, he changed his business model.

Out went Oscar’s original New York model of selling traditional insurance — with access to nearly every doctor and hospital in town — to individual customers via the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplace. In came “narrow networks” that offer customers less choice but lower prices. Schlosser believes the new approach will make the company’s offerings more attractive to customers — and more profitable for investors.

Recent weeks have brought a storm of questions about whether the health insurance exchange system at the heart of President Obama’s signature health law is already unraveling amid defections by major insurers. But as Oscar’s decision illustrates, the true picture is more nuanced. Companies lose — or gain — different amounts of money on the exchanges for different reasons. They need different changes, both in the law and in their own strategies, to make their businesses profitable, which would in turn help ensure Obamacare’s long-term success. And overall, the problem is significantly smaller than it looks.

The bottom line is that the Affordable Care Act is fixable — at least if Congress is willing to take some basic steps to save it.
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WELL, given that the legislature is under control of the GOP, there's no mystery as to whether Congress is willing to help make Obamacare work better.

..... But what this means is ---- Single payer is on it's way! But given the GOP's abhorrence of doing the grown-up, responsible thing and modify Obamacare to work better, we'll have to go through a melt down of the health insurance industry which will lead to an emergency action of expanding Medicare to cover people regardless of their age, which is far better than keeping for -profit medical insurers in business anyway.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Dont assume the last part, emergency expansion of Medicare

With this group in charge, they will never do the right thing, ever.

[Bill USA]

3. I'm presuming an (mid-term) election will ensue before that can happen. Keep in mind, when doctors

and hospitals have few patients who can afford their services - leading to a crash in there revenues - .. then THEY we'll be hurt too - and being hurt economicallly, they too will demand something be done - expeditiously. NOte: when the health care industry crashes - it will cause an severe economic recession - possibly a depression.

[riversedge]

2. Kand REC