The Affordable Care Act, adverse selection, and the “insurance death spiral”

The so-called Affordable Care Act provides a superb “real world” study of the consequences of adverse selection. This is further analyzed and illustrated in a Forbes article which was published today on the forbes.com website. The author of the article is Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who holds a research appointment with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Also see “Adverse Selection – a definition, some examples, and some solutions” and the Wikipedia article about adverse selection (@ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_selection).


Obamacare Faces A ‘Death Spiral’ — But It Turns On The Declining Participation Of Health Plans, Not Just Rising Premiums

www.forbes.com

“Given the failed launch of Obamacare, there’s a real chance that the entire scheme falls into an “insurance death spiral” — but not as visibly (or rapidly) as the way these sorts of unsuccessful insurance pools usually unravel. A death spiral happens when only the sickest beneficiaries get into an insurance pool, causing the cost of medical claims to rise, and in turn raising future premiums. These higher premiums, in turn, dissuade healthier beneficiaries from buying coverage. This exacerbates the strains and makes sure the pool continues to attract only the sickest consumers who are most in need of the medical coverage, and willing to pay the rising premiums. This is how the downward spiral ensues.”

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