How pulling Healthcare.gov ads could lead to insurer losses in 2017

The administration of President Donald Trump has cancelled advertisements and outreach efforts designed to encourage people to sign up on the health insurance marketplace in the final days of open enrollment, a move which could lead to a sicker, older risk pool for insurers.

POLITICO broke the news, reporting even ads which had already been paid for would be pulled. People who had visited Healthcare.gov or who had started an application and failed to complete it will no longer receive emails reminding them of the Jan. 31 deadline.

A HHS spokesperson said it was a cost-saving measure, saying the agency had already spent $60 million on marketing in the current open enrollment period.

This could have a substantial impact on insurers’ performance in exchange plans this year. More than 800,000 people bought coverage in the last five days of open enrollment in 2016. Those last-minute shoppers tend to be younger, healthier enrollees, a key demographic which can improve the exchange risk pool, since older enrollees tend to sign up earlier in the open enrollment period.

Independent analyst Charles Gaba called the move “sabotage,” saying it will likely cause enrollment to fall short of HHS’s previous estimates, bolstering the arguments to repeal the law.

“Effective Immediately, the Affordable Care Act can no longer be rightly referred to as ‘Obamacare,’ Gaba wrote. “Donald Trump and the Republican Party are now responsible for every enrollment shortfall, every person who misses the deadline, every lost CSR reimbursement, every missing APTC payment, every quarterly carrier loss and, especially, every worsening of the individual market risk pool which causes 2018 premium increases and/or carriers to pull out of the exchanges or the entire individual market.”

The Obama administration at HHS had emphasized outreach to younger customers this year, responding to the criticisms of departing exchange insurers, like Aetna, of the marketplace’s “broken” risk pool.

Those now ex-HHS officials echoed Gaba’s accusation that the new administration is trying to keep customers from signing up.

“It’s outrageous. It’s irresponsible,” Ben Wakana, a senior HHS spokesman until Trump took office, told the Washington Post. “They are deliberately undermining open enrollment to try to get a lower enrollment number.”