Impacts of Reducing the Individual Mandate/Shared Responsibility to Zero were not as Projected

Impacts of Eliminating the Individual Mandate/Shared Responsibility

“Under a range of scenarios that reflect alternative assumptions about responses to these factors, we find that enrollment falls by 2.8 million to 13 million people and premiums for bronze plans increase by 3 percent to 13 percent when the mandate penalty is removed.”

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2018/jul/eliminating-individual-mandate-penalty-behavioral-factors

“However, my base estimate that the mandate increased insurance coverage by

8.0 million people in 2016 is similar to CBO’s recent estimate of the long-run reduction in the number of people with health insurance that would result from repeal of the individual mandate and somewhat smaller than CBO’s earlier 13 million estimate (CBO 2017; CBO 2018)”.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/coverageeffectsofmandate2018.pdf

“The researchers found fears about the potential negative impact of eliminating the individual mandate penalty have "largely … not come to pass," The Hill reports.

“For example, the researchers found claims data suggests the penalty's elimination did not drive healthy enrollees to drop their insurance. Further, the researchers found that claims costs, like in previous years, grew modestly during the first nine months of 2019, which they said indicates health plan enrollees on average did not become less healthy after the penalty's elimination.”

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/01/08/individual-mandate and

“We find that, on average, individual market insurers remained profitable through 2019. Further, despite the absence of the mandate penalty, data indicate that the individual market has not become significantly less healthy. These new data from 2019 offer further evidence that the individual market is stable even without a mandate penalty, though several factors – notably the coronavirus pandemic, economic downturn, and ongoing lawsuit seeking to strike down the ACA – cloud expectations somewhat for the future.”

https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/individual-insurance-market-performance-in-2019/

Declines in Exchange Enrollment 2016-2020: 2016 = 12.7 million; 2017 = 12.2 million; 2018 = 11.7 million; 2019 = 11.4 million, and 2020 = 11.4 million  

 https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/marketplace-enrollment/?activeTab=graph&currentTimeframe=0&startTimeframe=6&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

NB: the reduction in the tax penalty to $0 for individuals who do not enroll in basic coverage from whatever form occurred between 2018 and 2019.

Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin

Dated: 10/16/20