The individual mandate is gone in 2019. The short duration plan regulations dropped yesterday. Those plans will allow for underwriting, medical exclusions and plans that offer don’t offer the full array of required benefits. What will the 2019 individual market look like?
Right now for someone who has to either buy their insurance on the individual market or go uninsured, there are a couple of broad pathways. They can buy a subsidized or unsubsidized ACA plan, they can participate in a Health Sharing Ministry, get on a three month short term plan or go uninsured.
Next year, those options change significantly. The individual mandate repeal and the proliferation of 364 day underwritten plans will pull a lot of good risk out of the current Qualified Health Plan (QHP) universe. This has major distributional consequences.