Based on Heather Carlson’s reporting, MNsure isn’t sustainable without substantial taxpayer bailouts:
Lackluster enrollment in private plans and drying-up federal funds may force Minnesota to pick up more of the tab for its health insurance exchange. MNsure would get another $11.7 million of state money under Gov. Mark Dayton’s proposed budget for technological improvements, a necessary change because public-plan signups have far outpaced private-plan enrollments.
The governor is also recommending the state assume costs the federal government covered until this year, such as $1.3 million over the next two years for staff to review rate submissions from insurance companies and another $558,000 to investigate complaints. Most federal funding has expired as Washington’s aim is to make state-run health exchanges self-sufficient.
Together, those changes would bring the state’s running costs for the exchange to at least $23.5 million since it was set up in 2013.
The only way the ACA is sustainable financially is if a large number of young healthies buy qualified health plans, aka QHPs. According to Ms. Carlson’s reporting, that isn’t happening:
Lawmakers set up MNsure mostly with federal funds, aiming to sign up Minnesota residents in both private plans and public programs for lower-income families like MinnesotaCare and Medical Assistance. State officials initially estimated about two-thirds of enrollments would be in those programs, with the remaining third in private plans. Instead, 91 percent of applicants have been placed in public programs, forcing the state to pitch in more money.
That’s unsustainable. Perhaps it’s unsustainable for the short term. That’s even questionable. There’s no doubt that it isn’t sustainable for the long term.
MNsure officials say they’ve altered their budget to put the exchange on a steady financial course, upping its fee on premiums from 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent and scaling back costs. But their three-year budget plan hinges on continually adding more new members in private plans than enrolled the year prior.
Anything that can’t be sustained won’t be. Inevitably, MNsure will be unaffordable. When (not if) that happens, the DFL will have egg on their faces. Republicans will criticize the DFL for implementing something that was expensive to the taxpayers and eventually, unsustainable financially.
Their (progressive’s) plan seems to be moving along just fine wouldn’t you say? In the next 5 years, there will be single payer health care because we won’t fix the current system and we can never go back to the way it was.
I’d argue the opposite. The DFL will have so totally screwed things up that giving government more control simply isn’t gonna fly.
Id like to think that is true too but name one government program that has ever been shut down due to incompetency or too much government control (one in the same I know)? Remember, progressive’s (both liberal and “conservative”) believe that they know how best to run your life so don’t think for one second that the total failure of Obamacare will stop them from a total takeover of single payer health care.