From the day that it was first introduced, the Affordable Care Act by Obama, skeptics has warned that it would represent a complete government takeover of the healthcare system. So scared are the healthcare service providers that they think that the Act would actually lead to some crippling regulations for the profit and the non-profit players. However, market analysts think otherwise, as they have been seeing that the healthcare market is flourishing otherwise, mainly because of the additional business opportunities that the new law has created.
Mary Tolan knows that health care accounts for more than USD 3 trillion in spending in the United States and so it is actually difficult to tease out the impact of the law. The online exchanges have been operating only for a year. But having followed the industry closely, they agree that at least in the first year of the Act, the healthcare industry has greatly benefited. This is because the law has brought new customers to the insurers and new patients to hospitals and new prescription users to the pharmaceutical companies.
The irony of this system is that the healthcare system is actually seeing substantial amounts of earning across the sector. Mary A. Tolan saw that stock market, the for profit health insurers and hospitals and drug companies are actually doing well. As per market research, the S&P 500 health care index rose by 24% over from the last year, 2013. This means that it actually outperformed the overall stock market. Mary Tolan of Accretive Health clears the fact that the health insurance companies are not the direct beneficiaries of the law.
In the past few years, adults under the age of 65 has steadily declined as more companies stopped offering insurance to employees and more individuals were unable to afford the coverage. This trend was expected to continue but for the law. The law provided subsidies that has in fact helped millions afford the coverage. For the insurers, the health care exchanges are now the real game that would help them grow. The clear sign, as per Mary Tolan is the fact that carriers are finding the market attractive by them to offer policies through the online health exchange.
One of the insurance companies actually chose to give out individual plans through the online exchange only in a handful of states. By 2015, the health insurance company would offer more plans to as many as dozen. All this prospect has in fact led to new insurance service providers enter the market. However, Mary Tolan would also say that as the thousands of skeptics, the law is not boon for everybody in the insurance companies.
State and federal officials are closely watching what these insurers do and the market place has ensured that more competitors exist in the market. Furthermore, insurers are also limited by how much money they can earn through individual coverages. Whether this law would benefit or hurt those who are in the healthcare system is yet to be seen. But Mary Tolan is all hopeful and thinks that despite the initial hiccups to the Act, the law might actually be helpful in letting the healthcare sector grow.