With Republican efforts to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) stalled, uncertainties loom for health insurers and could influence their future decisions on whether or not to participate in the ACA’s health care exchanges, according to health economist Katherine Baicker of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
In a July 19, 2017 interview with Bloomberg’s David Westin on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas,” Baicker, C. Boyden Gray Professor of Health Economics at Harvard Chan and a member of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Panel of Health Advisers, said that uncertainties—such as how much the federal government will provide in subsidies to help offset health care costs for low-income people—make it difficult for insurers to forecast what premiums should be, to figure out what kind of enrollees they will be able to attract, and even if they will be able to stay in business.
Listen to Katherine Baicker’s Bloomberg interview: Harvard’s Baicker: Health Care Hinges on Uncertainties