Looking closer, the 6.3 million-person enrollment drop in fully insured employee plans represents a sudden 10 percent decline in a market that previously had been eroding by about 1 percent to 3 percent a year. In contrast, the 1.4 million more individuals in self-insured plans equates to enrollment growth of about 1.5 percent in a market that, prior to Obamacare, was growing at about 1 to 3 percent a year—putting that uptick solidly within the pre-Affordable Care Act trend range.
Thus, the data indicates Obamacare likely was responsible for a significant additional decline in fully insured employer group coverage. But, with respect to another anticipated effect—the expectation that more employers will shift to self-insured plans to escape Obamacare’s costly benefit mandates—the data does not indicate that is yet occurring to any noticeable extent. The modest enrollment increase in self-insured employer plans could well be the result of other factors, the most likely being increased job creation as the economy continues to recover from the last recession.
Taken together, the administrative data tell us that the number of Americans with health insurance coverage increased by around 9.7 million individuals during 2014—not the 14.1 million estimated by Health and Human Services.
