I know I rip on Republicans a lot here at ACASignups.net, and I stand by pretty much all of it. Once in a while, however, a GOP member of Congress does do (or tries to do) something useful when it comes to healthcare policy...and the name most often attached to that is Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Alexander happens to be retiring, I should note. These two facts may or may not be connected, but I digress.
In any event, Sen. Alexander and Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington State have been working together for quite some time now on several healthcare bills to help stabilize the ACA, reduce drug prices and so forth, to varying degrees of success. I may not have agreed with most of Alexander's ideas, but he seems to be genuinely interested in improving the situation...and of course I can't say enough good things about Sen. Murray.
As noted a few weeks ago, Humana has already decided that regardless of what actions Donald Trump, Tom Price or Congressional Republicans end up doing (or not doing), they expect the 2018 individual market to be a big mess they want no part of...either on or off the exchanges:
...based on its initial analysis of data associated with the company’s healthcare exchange membership following the 2017 open enrollment period, Humana is seeing further signs of an unbalanced risk pool. Therefore, the company has decided that it cannot continue to offer this coverage for 2018. Through the remainder of 2017, Humana remains committed to serving its current members across 11 states where it offers Individual Commercial products. And, as it has done in the past, Humana will work closely with its state partners as it navigates this process.
Again, it's important to stress that Humana isn't just bailing on exchange participation, but to the best of my knowledge, they're pulling up stakes off-excahnge as well.
