CMS report: One million drop ACA coverage last year after prices spike

People earning too much to qualify for subsidies on the ACA marketplace are finding themselves priced out, according to a new government report (Source: “When Health Insurance Prices Rose Last Year, Around a Million Americans Dropped Coverage,” New York Times, July 3, 2018).

As insurance prices rose by an average of just over 20 percent around the country last year, people who qualified for ACA subsidies hung onto their insurance. But the increases appear to have been too much to bear for many customers who earned too much to qualify for financial help.

According to a new CMS report, about a million people appear to have been priced out of the market for health insurance last year.

Individuals who earn more than around $48,000 have to pay full price for their health plans; that group has faced a second round of big premium increases in 2018 and is looking at a third round of them in some parts of the country next year.

The Trump administration also reduced advertising for the insurance signup period and made it harder for people to sign up for insurance later in the year, two factors that could have also depressed insurance enrollment. It’s also possible that some who stopped buying their own insurance did so because they got a new job with health care benefits.