US predicts small gain for health sign-ups

Nearly 14M likely to get insurance on exchanges

Federal health officials predicted Wednesday that nearly 14 million people will sign up for insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges for 2017, an increase of just over 1 million people from the last open enrollment.

This increase represents about the same percentage growth in health plan selections as last year.

The new report from the Department of Health and Human Services also estimates monthly enrollment of people who have paid their premiums — known as effectuated enrollment — will average 11.4 million people over the course of 2017.

“It sounds like a prediction of basically ‘business as usual’ in the fourth open enrollment period — fairly high retention combined with a modest amount of new enrollment,” said Katherine Hempstead, who heads the insurance team at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Given all the drama around price increases and (insurer) exits, that is a pretty upbeat projection and also probably a fair one.”

The prediction, Hempstead said, “reflects the fact that most of the people in this market value their coverage a lot and are not fickle consumers.”

Thereareabout10.7millionpeople who are uninsured and eligible for coverage through the state and federal exchanges.

The Kaiser Family Foundation said Wednesday that about 5 million of those currently uninsured could get financial assistance to buy their plans through the exchanges. HHS says about 2.5 million

people who are buying plans off the exchanges would be eligible for subsidies if they bought on them.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell told a gathering of people helping with ACA consumer outreach Wednesday that she feels “confident and excited” about the future of the exchanges, but acknowledged the challenges.

“Building a new market is never easy,” Burwell said in the speech in Salem, Va. “We expect this to be a transition period for the marketplace.”

Insurers, Burwell said, “are adjusting their prices, bringing them in line with actual data on costs.”

Regulators approved rates that were actually higher than insurers requested in eight states, USA TODAY reported Tuesday. Charles Gaba of ACASignups.net, who did the rate analysis for USA TODAY, said this shows states are working to keep insurance companies from losing too much money.

Several large insurers have dropped off the exchanges citing large losses on the plans. HHS is working to attract younger, healthier people to offset the costs of insuring the sicker early enrollees.