Stop bickering, fi x health care
In Ohio, insurers are getting scarce
Obamacare’s rickety state and the effect of the uncertainty created by the GOP’s wobbling over a replacement can be made no plainer that the news that Anthem is exiting Ohio’s marketplace exchange next year.
Individuals and families in as many as 20 Ohio counties, some 10,000 people, would have zero choice for a willing insurer under the federally facilitated exchange. Another 56,000 people throughout the state who’ve already signed up with Anthem would have to find a different plan.
Lives, literally, hinge on Ohioans continuing to have access to affordable health care. Yet, Congress and the Trump administration continue the partisan bickering, posturing and finger pointing. At this point, the GOP’s long promised “repeal and replace” — they had years to come up with a better plan — resembles demolition by neglect. Obamacare is in a death spiral.
Get this fixed, Washington. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, told The Dispatch recently that he and other Democrats have offered to work with Republicans on a bipartisan solution. The response: crickets.
Thus far, the GOP has engaged in every unproductive tactic for which it blasted the Democrats when the House passed a politically constructed health-care act without bipartisan support and without proper vetting to determine costs and consequences.
Congress now looks as unhinged as the president, frightening vulnerable Americans and making insurers skittish.
In announcing it was pulling out of Ohio’s Obamacare exchange for 2018, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield cited, in part, uncertainty over federal reimbursements and regulations. “An increasing lack of overall predictability simply does not provide a sustainable path forward to provide affordable plan choices for consumers,” a company statement said.
Economics 101 dictates that, if government wishes to kill a business, a few moves will do the trick: Create uncertainty to thwart planning; inflict costly and difficult regulations; and impose an unsustainable tax structure.
Obamacare and the Republican alternative succeed wildly on all fronts, and both parties bear blame.
If Obamacare is “collapsing under its own weight,” as says Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, it is equally true that the Republicans did their best to kick the legs out from underneath it. But even without GOP opposition, it was bound to die a slow and debilitating death from natural causes.
Predictably, plans pulled out of an unsustainable economic model, competition narrowed, consumer choice thinned and costs escalated. In 2016, Ohio residents in all 88 counties could choose from at least four health-care insurance companies during open enrollment. In 2017, residents in 20 Ohio counties have only one company as an option for their health insurer.
Next year, the number of those without a single choice will go to zero in 18 or 20 counties, depending on how successful efforts are by the Ohio Department of Insurance in encouraging remaining insurers to add a county or two.
Even if this is successful, the overall health-care reform has not been: Costs for individuals buying premiums on Ohio’s federally run exchange have about doubled since 2013. And many participants find that even if their premiums are affordable, the deductibles are so high they can’t afford to use their insurance.
President Donald Trump and the Republicans campaigned last year on a pledge to fix American health-care coverage. They need to deliver with a plan that is not only accessible but solves the underlying problem of escalating health-care costs. In the meantime, stop squabbling and provide a stable path forward before additional insurers bolt.