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1.4 million people are about to lose their current Obamacare coverage

Oct 14, 2016, 19:41 IST

A doctore examines a patient.Gerald Herbert/AP Images

The exodus of insurers from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is going to lead to a massive shift in coverage next year.

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According to an analysis by Bloomberg's Zachary Tracer, Tatiana Darie, and Katherine Doherty, roughly 1.4 million Americans will lose the coverage they have currently through the ACA, better known as Obamacare, exchanges and have to find a new plan.

Bloomberg estimated the number by calling the insurance regulator in each state and asking how many people would be impacted. A few states, such as Georgia and Texas, either didn't answer Bloomberg or did not have enough data.

Eleven states and Washington DC said they would be unaffected.

According to the Bloomberg report, the states with the most turnover are Florida, North Carolina Tennessee, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

The shift is primarily due to insurers leaving the marketplaces where they operated. Large firms such as Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, and Humana have all announced rollbacks of their Obamacare coverage for 2017.

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Some states, such as Minnesota, Tennessee, and South Carolina have seen so many insurers leave that it has pushed the exchanges to the brink, lead to large premium increases, and have state lawmakers worried.

These insurers are reducing coverage due to the unexpectedly high costs of the pool of people entering the exchanges. The people that have signed up so far have been sicker and older than expected, meaning they are net losses for the insurers. Younger people have not jumped onto the exchanges as anticipated, leaving the insurers without a counterbalancing group to pay into the pool.

The Obama administration recently announced new initiatives and rules to help mitigate these problems.

The open enrollment period for 2016 opens November 1 and end at the end of January.

Read the full Bloomberg coverage here.

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