Young Avoid New Health PlansEarly Buyers of Coverage Are Older Than Expected, Raising Expense Concerns
Younger, healthier Americans needed to make Obamacare financially viable are not signing up in sufficient numbers. Most enrollees have been people over 50, many with pre-existing medical conditions.
The skew toward the older crowd raises concerns that there will not be enough payments from young people to offset the cost of providing coverage for the older ailing population, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The early numbers, while statistically too small to draw conclusions, raise concerns about the practicality of the insurance marketplaces.
"We need a broad range of people to make this work, and we're not seeing that right now," Heather Thiltgen of Medical Mutual, one of Ohio largest insurers told the Journal. "We're seeing the population skewing older."
The target enrollee is someone around 40 years if age.
If the drift continues, a more expensive cohort of customers, older and less healthy, would drive up costs for everyone. The federal government had committed to reimburse insurers if they underestimated costs.
This may still not be enough to keep the system afloat should the overall customer pool be appreciably older than forecast.
Widespread problems with the healthcare.gov system serving the 36 states that are not operating their own marketplaces have dissuaded younger, healthier applicants from enrolling. Those who cannot chance being without coverage have persevered.
The young-to-old ratio is not much different in those states that are running their own marketplaces and where the process is smoother, according to the Journal.
In Connecticut, where Access Health CT is the Health Insurance Marketplace, the largest insurer, WellPoint Inc., reported that most of its enrollees were between 55 and 64, according to the Journal.
Under the law, people who want their coverage to start on January 1 must enroll by mid-December. Those who seek coverage sometime later in 2014 must enroll by March 31.
White House officials are optimistic that younger people will sign on in large numbers as the deadlines approach, the Journal said.
Younger, healthier Americans needed to make Obamacare financially viable are not signing up in sufficient numbers. Most enrollees have been people over 50, many with pre-existing medical conditions.
The skew toward the older crowd raises concerns that there will not be enough payments from young people to offset the cost of providing coverage for the older ailing population, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The early numbers, while statistically too small to draw conclusions, raise concerns about the practicality of the insurance marketplaces.
"We need a broad range of people to make this work, and we're not seeing that right now," Heather Thiltgen of Medical Mutual, one of Ohio largest insurers told the Journal. "We're seeing the population skewing older."
The target enrollee is someone around 40 years if age.
If the drift continues, a more expensive cohort of customers, older and less healthy, would drive up costs for everyone. The federal government had committed to reimburse insurers if they underestimated costs.
This may still not be enough to keep the system afloat should the overall customer pool be appreciably older than forecast.
Widespread problems with the healthcare.gov system serving the 36 states that are not operating their own marketplaces have dissuaded younger, healthier applicants from enrolling. Those who cannot chance being without coverage have persevered.
The young-to-old ratio is not much different in those states that are running their own marketplaces and where the process is smoother, according to the Journal.
In Connecticut, where Access Health CT is the Health Insurance Marketplace, the largest insurer, WellPoint Inc., reported that most of its enrollees were between 55 and 64, according to the Journal.
Under the law, people who want their coverage to start on January 1 must enroll by mid-December. Those who seek coverage sometime later in 2014 must enroll by March 31.
White House officials are optimistic that younger people will sign on in large numbers as the deadlines approach, the Journal said.
