The Republican Party does not have the luxury of time to get their act together on health policy. They have maybe fifty days to get a coherent plan with the possibility of passage before external actors move to foreclose on Republican policy option space:
So, $AET says April 1 key date for #repealobamacare #repealanddelay rules; $ANTM says will decide on pulling the plug on 2018 at end of Q2
— Bertha Coombs (@berthacoombs) February 1, 2017
Below is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services plan filing timeline.
If an insurer is already in a market with an approved network for 2017, the compliance costs that are being incurred now to prepare a filing with no material changes in it is not significant for an incumbent carrier. Right now, minor network changes will be made as some doctors move into an area, other doctors retire and contracts are re-arranged and reworked as they are renewed. A few people could run the prep work right now for a caretaker filing. The option cost to offer plans on Exchange in 2018 right now is not particulary high for incumbents in current service area. The prep costs to prepare a filing for either dramatically new plan designs, fundamentally new networks or new service areas are far higher.
Incumbents can file caretaker plans through May 3, 2017. After that, barring extraordinary circumstances, the number of possible plans that can be sold will only decrease as state regulators knock out marginal networks, carriers pull back an alternative benefit design because their competitors did not offer the target the alternative was supposed to counter and providers pull out of MOU’s and drop themselves from a network. That is what happens in a normal plan filing cycle. This year, quite a few carriers could decide that the policy uncertainty will not allow them to effectively project the market at all and thus withdraw in the early summer.
And as there is longer policy uncertainty the probability of policy success declines so the increased cost of having an option to participate on the QHP market will decline in expected pay-off. Carriers need to have a good enough idea of the policy environment by the middle of April. Right now, hunkering down and quietly talking behind the scenes is a reasonable and low cost option. That cheap option expires far sooner than everyone wants to acknowledge.
Jeffro
So when do the big stakeholders/players in the health care biz start ramping up their efforts to get the GOP to knock it off? It looks like a few of the more rabid Goopers are worrying that common sense is settling in…
Jeffro
So when do the bigger stakeholders in the health care biz start ramping up on the GOP to knock it off? It looks like a few Goopers are getting worried that common sense is settling in…
Villago Delenda Est
If your plan is “If you get sick, and you’re not in the 1%, die” then you have all the time in the world.
The drop dead date is now for everyone outside of the 1%. Sorry, folks, but 80,000 of you in WI, MI, and PA made this so. You fucktards.
Yarrow
So…you’re saying if the Republicans don’t get their act together with “replace” by May 3 then insurers may end up not putting out new plans, so we’ll have fewer plans? Sounds like we’re screwed.
Ohio Mom
At first glance, I read Timeline to RUIN, and I thought, Okay, here’s where I find out how much time I have before I have to retrieve the passports from the bank box.
Never mind.
rikyrah
@Villago Delenda Est:
I despise them too.
hovercraft
I’m sorry but I just can’t get used to this Dave Anderson guy, Richard was just so much better at this health care explaining stuff.
This is what happens when you run on stupid slogans with no thought given to actual policy. The new rumblings about improving rather than repealing Obamacare make me a miniscule more inclined to believe that we still have a chance of preserving the law. They are cowering in their homes, afraid to hold public meetings and town halls because they are hearing it from their constituents. Any pressure from any quarter at this point is a welcome push to make them understand the ramifications of their actions. Unfortunately they still don’t care about the millions who would lose coverage, but they do care about their own political futures. I don’t care their motivations, as long as in the end they do the right thing.
hovercraft
@rikyrah: @Villago Delenda Est:
I’ve become a bitter, so much has already gone wrong, and it’s less than two weeks of this shit. Muslim bans, religious discrimination, alienating our allies, our real allies, not the Saudi’s who are our allies, but look the other way as their citizens fund terrorists, Mexico, Australia, these fucking people did this to all of us. Hillary is a liar, e-mails bullshit, but suddenly this dipshit can have his old phone, benefit from the FSB hacking and interference, botch a mission in Yemen, but we are supposed to just chill and sing kumbaya? Fuck that and him and every single fucking person who voted for him? Hell no. I will never, ever let these people know that they are the morons and racists who are responsible for this shit. I don’t want to hear about how you were deceived or didn’t know, you were all warned but you did this anyway, and now we are all screwed.
Jeffro
Glad to see the mouth-breathers are getting nervous about Obamacare maybe sticking around…
Jeffro
The AARP is coming around to keeping Obamacare, too…
piratedan
@hovercraft: these fuckers had six years to come up with plans to make it “better” or offer a replacement. This simply shows that yes, it was indeed all racially motivated and not a political difference of opinion. It was always about de-legitimizing the former president and denying him any legacy because in their minds he was a Ni…… and therefore anything he promoted, despite how closely aligned it was with their own desires had to be opposed. Fucking governance by petty grievance.
martian
So, this is it. They act to keep it or the insurers act to take it. I don’t see any way the Republicans get their shit together to replace in fifty days. They had years to think of something. What the hell were they doing with all that time on their hands while they obstructed everything Obama hoped to do? Was burn it down the whole, entire plan?
I feel like there used to be a difference between the Republican lawmakers and the rubes they grifted from, that a lot of them looked down on the crazies and knew the real score. These days, it looks like a significant chunk of the “elite” are just as drunk on the koolaid as the base. They can’t see outside their constructed reality.
martian
@piratedan: Truth instead of alternative facts, right here.
Jeffro
@martian:
– yup
– wanking off to copies of ATLAS SHRUGGED, is my guess
– yup
Mnemosyne
@martian:
I think there are (roughly) two groups: the opportunists who latched onto hating Obamacare but assumed that Hillary would win and prevent them from actually having to do anything; and true believers who will do anything to save an extra $100 in taxes.
Now the Republicans are in full control of the whole circus and the opportunists are panicking, because now they actually have to act on their statements. And they’re realizing that the true believers don’t give a shit about them or their re-elections as long as they can destroy the government.
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. I have no pity for them.
Clem
@bjdickmayhew Found your tweet, will retweet to @repgregwalden. I like to give him a hard time cuz he needs to get on the stick.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
I never thought that I would be this hard. Never. But, in a way, it’s the benefit of him NOT running a dogwhistle campaign.As Kay reminds us pretty much everyday, they knew what an awful human being he was..
And, they voted for him anyway.
No sympathy.
And, we are not alone. The MSM, in particular, doesn’t understand the seismic shift that has occurred.
Neither do a sizeable amount of Democratic officeholders.
Karen
@Jeffro:
I was wondering then AARP would get into the game. Congressmen and Senators tend to listen to them because of the seniors that would be flooding the phone lines. They’re afraid of angry seniors.
Raoul
So, as someone who buys health insurance in the individual market, but not on an Exchange, is this uncertainty environment likely to mean I have few or no plans to chose from for 2018? Or will it just mean that my premium will probably rise horribly?
I know there are too many variables (what state, what market w/in a state, etc) to know. But my partner and I are already worrying. Seems like we’re not really worrying all that far ahead of schedule.