Why people bought on the exchanges is even more important to know than how many people did so. Here’s what CNBC found:
Instead, LaMontagne said, “We heard people saying they really valued health insurance … we heard again, and again and again that people wanted health insurance, and they were sick of finding these short-term solutions.”
“People have expressed a desire to be insured and have over time pieced together temporary solutions as their employment or health situations have changed,” she said. “One common thread were heard from parents is that often some family members were insured while others were not. … For these families, [the Affordable Care Act] offered an opportunity to get everyone covered in some way and to fill in gaps across the family unit.”
In other words, people motivated by need, real or perceived, are the ones doing the buying — just as this site and many others long suspected.
That doesn’t bode well for signups by the young invincibles, without whom the exchanges are not actuarially sound.
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