Concerned About Losing Your Marketplace Plan?

continued...

Timothy Jost, an emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Virginia who is an expert on the health law, also predicts a reasonable transition period.

Congress and the new administration are “not eager to have a bunch of angry, uninsured voters,” Jost said.

Theoretical conversations about changing the health law are one thing, but “I think that Congress may be less willing to just wipe the subsidies out if a lot of people are using them,” Rosenbaum said. More than 9 million people receive subsidies on the marketplace, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Q. Can my insurer drop out once the new administration takes over, even if the law hasn’t been repealed?

No, insurers are generally locked in contractually for 2017, according to experts. But 2018 could be a whole different story, said Laszewski.

Many insurers are already losing money on their marketplace offerings. If they know that the health insurance marketplaces are being eliminated and replaced by something else in 2019, why would they stick with a sinking ship?

“The Trump administration could be left with a situation where Obamacare is still alive, the subsidies are still alive, but not the insurers,” said Laszewski. To prevent that, the Trump administration might have to subsidize insurers’ losses during a 2018 transition year, he said.

Q. My state expanded Medicaid to adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (about $16,000). Is that going to end if Obamacare is repealed?

It may. Trump has advocated giving block grants to finance the entire Medicaid program on the theory that it provides an incentive for states to make their programs more cost-effective. But that strategy could threaten the coverage of millions of Americans if the block grants don’t keep pace with costs, Jost said.

So far, 31 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid under the health law. Republican governors in these states may play a key role in arguing against taking the expansion money away, Rosenbaum said.