Obamacare’s marketplaces were supposed to give consumers choices of health plans from insurers that compete to keep premiums down. But fewer insurers are participating, and premiums are increasing sharply.
Fixing this problem will obviously be politically difficult with a Republican-controlled Congress that has vowed to “repeal and replace.” President-elect Donald J. Trump has also said he wants to get rid of the ACA, although he amended that recently by saying he’d like to keep some elements. Replacing the law, without a Senate supermajority, would also be politically difficult.
From a policy standpoint, however, some solutions to problems facing the marketplaces are ones that Republicans have endorsed before: for Medicare. That’s the topic of this week’s Healthcare Triage.
This episode was adapted from a column Austin wrote for the Upshot. Links to further reading and sources can be found there.
