Covered California health market is alive and well

Despite the persistent efforts of President Trump and Republicans in Congress to sabotage the health insurance market, Covered California is alive and well.

Open enrollment in the state’s exchange program began Wednesday and continues through Jan. 31. Thanks to careful planning, the vast majority of the 1.4 million enrolled in Covered California plans will be able to find affordable health insurance coverage for 2018.

Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee says 78 percent of the program’s enrollees can expect to see their costs actually decrease next year.

That’s right. Decrease. It’s remarkable, and it proves the resilience of the ACA. For all its flaws, which Congress has declined to fix, it is fundamentally working as it was intended when signed into law by President Obama in 2010.

Single-payer and Medicare for All are pipe dreams as long as Republicans control Congress — and even if they didn’t, we have yet to see a financing plan that makes sense. The best course for California’s congressional delegation, which includes leaders in both parties, is to work together to improve the law.

Currently, the health coverage of 4.6 million Californians is funded by the Affordable Care Act. They either buy insurance plans through Covered California or were able to join MediCal, the state’s version of Medicaid.

Unfortunately, many Californians not enrolled in Covered California will see double-digit increases in their premiums this year. But remember that in President George W. Bush’s first five years in office, from 2001 to 2006, the average family health insurance premiums nationally increased by 63 percent. And for the five years before the enactment of the ACA, it was 31 percent.

The president’s efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act are appalling. First, Trump shortened the enrollment period from 12 weeks to six weeks in a blatant attempt to reduce the number of people who will have insurance through state exchanges. Trump then signed an executive order stopping the ACA’s cost-sharing reduction payments to health insurers. Those payments are what made it possible for them to lower out-ofpocket health care costs for 7 million low-income Americans.

Covered California countered the president’s shenanigans by increasing its marketing and outreach programs by $100 million and keeping the sign-up period in the state at 12 weeks. Lee also made a deal with insurers participating in the state’s health exchange programs that effectively counters Trump’s executive order reducing payments.

California’s decision to go “all in” in signing up as many people as possible has created a larger pool of healthier enrollees, demonstrating again that an ounce of prevention is the best way to go about reducing overall medical costs. It’s a lesson California Republicans such as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy should carry back to Congress.

For all its flaws, which Congress has declined to fix, it is fundamentally working as it was intended when signed into law by President Obama in 2010.