Lessons From The Obamacare Data Dump

This week the Department of Health and Human Services released a ton of information about how insurance sold in 36 states under the Affordable Care Act will work. Most of it came in the form of data showing the number of carriers and their premium prices in hundreds of regions.

Until now we've seen information on subsidized policies to be sold through online marketplaces released in trickles by states that are creating their own online portals.

The federal data covers states that dumped all or part of the work of building the marketplaces on the feds. It’s the biggest chunk of information so far available, even though many critical pieces — the identity of the insurers, the structure of the benefits, the networks of the hospitals and doctors — won't be known until next week. That's when the online portals in every state are scheduled to start selling subsidized insurance made available by the ACA to those who aren't otherwise covered.

The Obama administration boasted that the premiums came out lower than expected. Opponents of the ACA countered that many people buying through the exchanges, especially younger, healthier consumers, may pay substantially more than what they pay now.

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Source: Kaiser Health News