5 PPACA exchange watcher views: Where are we now?

“I don’t see a lot of new agents coming in to this business,” Hickey said. “The opportunities are questionable, and the future is uncertain.”

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3. Andrea Levine: Denver, Colorado

Colorado benefits provider Andrea Levine said she is certified to sell health insurance through her state’s PPACA exchange but has decided to focus on selling group health coverage.

“There’s just fewer carriers for people who really need coverage,” Levine said. “There are less and less options in the exchange, so it’s just going to be harder for people to find coverage, and it’s going to be more expensive.”

See also: Colorado exchange bones up on broker strategy

4. Michael Lujan: San Francisco Bay area

Even in California, where agents and brokers in markets like San Francisco and Los Angeles have little need to worry about short health insurance product menus, producers see the exchange system going through a challenging adjustment period.

“Early on, most of the carriers expressed concerns about how the risk pools would work,” said Michael Lujan, president of California Association of Health Underwriters (CAHU). “The reality of it has panned out to be closer to what they feared than what they were told.”

Lujan said he views UnitedHealth’s decision to cut back on exchange sales as part of an “awkward stage,” as PPACA continues to settle in. But he added that, in the short-term, brokers and agents in California’s smaller communities may be frustrated by the lack of coverage options, or by constricted provider networks. “If you’re a consumer in that market, that’s pretty tough,” he said.

See also: Limelight strategist: The exchange force is real

5. Morgan Tilleman: Milwaukee

Morgan Tilleman is an attorney with Foley & Lardner, a law firm that represents both health insurers and health care providers. He said it’s too soon to judge how profitable PPACA exchanges can (or cannot) be. 

“If you look across the industry, folks who are on the exchanges are asking for and getting pretty substantial rate increases,” Tilleman said. “That’s going to be part of the pathway to profitability on the exchanges.”

He praised PPACA coverage providers that are successfully selling products to younger, generally healthy consumers.

“Growing enrollments is critical,” he said. “These companies need to be targeting the healthier folks.”

Tilleman added that it will be some time before the insurance industry can make a definitive call about the viability of the PPACA exchanges. “There’s a lot of business left to be done before we can write the story of whether the exchanges worked or not,” the attorney said.

See also: Election forces Wisconsin governor’s hand on health care