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The Black AIDS Institute: White House: There Will Be Competition In Insurance Exchanges
The Obama administration is countering criticism that the new health insurance exchanges will be lacking in competition, though it’s doing so a bit quietly.
At a White House briefing Thursday for health reporters, in which senior administration health officials spoke on the condition that they not be named, and in a memo, the administration insisted that in most states at least, competition will be far greater than it is today — with 120 companies having applied to offer insurance.
For example, in three-quarters of the states where the federal government is running the marketplaces, at least one new insurer has applied to enter the individual market. And nearly two-thirds of the new insurance entrants to the individual market in federally run exchanges are in states where one insurance company now dominates the market.
The officials stressed how much better competition will be than it is in the current market for individual coverage. In 2012, one insurer covered more than half of all people in the individual market in 29 states. In 11 more states, two insurers covered 85 percent or more of the individual market enrollees.
The federal government will be fully in charge of the exchanges in 19 states. It will partner with states in 15 states. The remaining 17 states will run their own marketplaces.
