Manatt Health Managing Director Joel Ario was quoted in AIS Health about how the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency will impact marketplace coverage as states disenroll millions of Medicaid beneficiaries.
Health insurance providers can retain some of their members by working to enroll them in Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage, according to the article, but there will likely be fewer people who make the switch than there were who joined the Medicaid rolls during the pandemic. Ario explained that, although this shift to the exchange will be minimal at the national level, they represent substantial opportunity at the level of an individual health plan. “Even though it’s a relatively small percentage of people [recently enrolled in Medicaid] who would be eligible for the exchanges, and a small percentage would likely end up [enrolling] in the exchanges, that’s still a significant opportunity for the exchange market” because of the sheer size of the enrollment shift, Ario said. “If it’s 10% of that population that the exchanges capture, that would be a significant increase in the exchange market” because of its much smaller size, he added.