Nearly a third of U.S. counties will be left with just one insurance option next year on the ObamaCare exchanges, according to a new analysis fueling warnings about the impact of the insurance company exodus from markets across the country.
(FOX)- The Kaiser Family Foundation study found residents in Pinal County, Ariz., are even at risk of having no insurance options on the exchanges, which provide subsidized plans.
Republicans seized on the report Monday to claim that the health care overhaul is not providing the choices promised by President Obama and others.
“The president repeatedly promised that his health care law would provide more choices, ‘bend the cost curve,’ and allow Americans to keep the plans they liked and could afford. He failed to live up to those promises, and families are paying the price,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a statement, noting the majority of counties in Missouri could be left with just one insurance option on the exchanges.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study found that overall, 31 percent of counties will have just a single insurance option within the Affordable Care Act exchanges. That’s up from 7 percent this year — and underscores a problem many analysts have been warning about for years.
Further, about six in 10 counties could have two or fewer marketplace insurers in 2017, with the “bulk of the increase in single-insurer counties” the result of UnitedHealth Group’s exit, the study, released Sunday, reveals.