WHETHER or not their bid to reform health care succeeds, Republicans think Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act will founder. For years, critics of the law have said that its health-insurance markets will enter a “death spiral” in which rising premiums drive out healthy buyers, forcing premiums higher still. “Obamacare is absolutely dead” President Donald Trump told The Economist on May 4th.
If he is right, calamity looms. Eighteen million Americans buy insurance for themselves, rather than through an employer; it is this part of the insurance market that looks wobbly. Mr Trump thinks its collapse would force Democrats to join his reform effort. And he is putting his money where his mouth is. Indeed, his administration is part of the problem.
Insurers raised premiums in the individual market by an average of 22% in 2017. They had been caught out by the poor health of enrollees on Obamacare’s “exchanges”, websites that serve a little over...Continue reading
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