Welcome to the Trump era.

The ACA as we know (and love?) it is gone. So what's next?That's anybody's guess. Here's what we know so far — along withprognostications from industry experts.

Related: Trump: 5 things employers are wonderingabout

Insurance agents, brokers and others are starting to wrap theirbrains around an amazing reality: A Republican administration willbe in charge of administering the Affordable Care Act.

The fourth-annual ACA open enrollment period for 2017 startedNov. 1 and is set to end Jan. 31, 11 days after Donald Trump is tobe sworn in as the next president of the United States ofAmerica.

Barack Obama had to work hard to get anything big passed duringhis first term in the White House, even though he started withpersonal experience as a senator, a Democratic majority in theHouse and what was regarded as a “filibuster-proof” Democraticmajority in the Senate. The most liberal Democrats gave him almostas much grief as the Republicans.

Trump appears to be on track to enter the White House in whatcould be a weaker starting position. He has no personal experienceserving in the federal government, and he will start with only anarrow Republican majority in the Senate.

Related: The election is over: 3 health carepredictions

To get ordinary legislation through the Senate, Trump will haveto hold on to what are regarded as the most moderate Republicansenators, Dean Heller of Nevada and Susan Collins of Maine, and atleast seven of the Democratic senators who are at least as close tothe neighborhood of the center as Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.),who was recently elected the next Senate minority leader. One ofthose moderately liberal senators Trump might need to court is Sen.Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Hillary Clinton's running mate.

Kaine lost, but he helped his ticket win in Virginia, on adifficult night for Democrats, and that might give him some extraclout in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Trump knows about insurance and benefits issuesmainly through his role as a business owner, and through hisinteraction with campaign advisors, such as Dr. Ben Carson, aformer Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon.

Trump has said he wants to repeal the ACA and replace it with acombination of an expanded health savings account program andinterstate insurance sales, but he has also indicated interest inkeeping some key provisions of Obamacare as well.

Here are some ideas about how that could hurt some healthinsurance industry players and help others over the next two years:

Likely losers

1. The term “Affordable Care Act.”

The incoming Trump administration may find actually killing theACA is time-consuming, or even impossible. Some major RepublicanACA replacement plans have included many popular ACAprovisions.

But the rapid growth of ACA jargon has confused even the friendsof the ACA, and the new administration may be eager to rid itselfof as much of that terminology as it can, as quickly aspossible.

2. The consultants and think tanks who shaped theACA.

The ACA idea people might have been right about what theyproposed. ACA defenders might say ACA world problems have had moreto do with the rushed, secretive process Democrats used to get thelegislation through Congress, and with fierce Republican oppositionto the law, than with the ideas inside the law.

But, in the end, the ACA legislation created a framework socomplicated and market upheaval so severe that many Democrats,including Clinton and Kaine, avoided talking much about it on thecampaign trail. The fourth open enrollment period became a topic toavoid, rather than a triumphant event to celebrate.

3. Bernie Sanders and other advocates of single-payerhealth care.

Some of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' allies say Clinton wassimply too corrupt, and too friendly to big corporations, and thatconspirators inside the Democratic Party apparatus kept him off thegeneral election ballot. But his supporters did get agovernment-run health care system proposal on the ballot inColorado, a state that often votes for Democrats. In a way, themeasure could be considered a stand-in for Sanders himself.

But Sen. Michael Bennet and other prominent Democrats inColorado opposed the measure, and Colorado voters defeated it by amargin of 20.3 percent to 79.7 percent.

4. Single-state Blue Cross and Blue Shieldgorillas.

Some of the remaining Blues are giant, nonprofit companies thatcover half or more of the commercial health plan enrollees in theirmarkets.

Efforts by Trump to allow interstate sales of health coveragecould appeal to some Democrats. State insurance regulators contendthat letting insurers choose their own home-state regulator couldlead to insurers having no real choice but to flock to the weakestregulator.

Interstate health coverage sales could also benefit the bignational carriers at the expense of carriers that have not had toface serious competition in years.

5. Nonprofit ACA exchange plan helperprograms.

The Trump administration may see grants for state ACA exchangenavigator programs and certified application counselor programs aslove notes to Democratic-supported health policy organizations.

Possible winners

1. Trump's own insurance and benefitsadvisors.

Trump may be someone who avoids reading long policy positionpapers or listening to long policy presentations. Instead, he maydevelop ideas about who to trust, and what to think about healthpolicy, by talking to people he already trusts, or thinking abouthis own experiences as a benefits buyer.

That means that, in some cases, a brief Trump entity employeebenefits update included in an ordinary employer newsletter fiveyears ago, just to fill space, might have caught Trump's eye andhave more influence over him than a 200-page paper a centrist thinktank rolled out.

Carson and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, his vice president-elect,could be two major sources of health policy advice, and his owncompany's top-level benefits managers might be other sources.

For his payroll company based on Fifth Avenue in New York City,for example, the names of Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organizationcontroller, and Ronald Lieberman, the company's executive vicepresident for management and development, appear on benefit planForm 5500 filings for 2015.

2. HSA Bank and other HSA providers.

In the past, both Democratic and Republican budget economistshave wondered whether Has tax breaks and similar tax breaks doenough to help struggling people to justify their cost to theTreasury.

But Carson and many other Republican ACA replacement draftershave included expanded health savings account program proposals intheir proposals, and Trump has briefly mentioned health savingsaccounts during many campaign stops.

That could be good news for major health savings accountservices providers, such as Sheboygan, Wisconsin-based HSA Bank andthe health savings account banking unit at Minnetonka,Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group.

3. CNO Financial, Genworth Financial and other privatelong-term care insurers.

One reason private long-term care insurance is struggling isbecause of bad product design, pricing and underwriting decisionsthat were made long ago.

A second reason is court-imposed changes in how long-term careinsurance issuers pay out benefits.

A third reason is low interest rates.

But a fourth reason is that many of the types of policymakerswho have advised the Obama administration hate long-term careinsurance issuers because of past wars over a proposed Medicarelong-term care benefits program and over an ACA provision that wassupposed to create a universal voluntary long-term care benefitsprogram.

Those health policy shapers will no longer have much clout inWashington.

Another reason long-term care insurance issuers could benefit isthat the Trump payroll service has offered a group long-term careinsurance program.

Pence is the governor of CNO Financial's home state, and hashelped promote his state's Long Term Care Partnership program,which uses Medicaid-related incentives to encourage people to buyprivate long-term care insurance.

Meanwhile, Kaine has been governor of Virginia, which is thehome state of Richmond, Virginia-based Genworth Financial. Kainehas also helped start his own state's Long Term Care Partnershipprogram.

If anyone could put in a good word for private long-term careinsurance, it might be Pence and Kaine.

4. Anthem.

Indianapolis-based Anthem has been warm to the ACA publicexchange system, but it's also based in Pence's home state. Itmight have an opportunity to be on good terms with the Trumpadministration's secretary of Health and Human Services.

5. Consumer operated and oriented Plan carriers andcarriers waiting for payments from troubled ACA riskprograms.

Trump administration officials could simply tell the CO-OPmanagers and ACA risk program creditors, “You're fired, bozos,” butone way the Trump administration might be able to move a major ACAchanger or replacement bill through the Senate would be to helpinsurers and other coverage issuers that are facing financialproblems because they believed the Obama administration whenofficials said the ACA risk corridors and risk-adjustment programsmoney would be coming soon.

In September, the Republican staff of a House committee put outa CO-OP report in which the staffers wrote sympathetically abouthow the CO-OPs appeared to be the victims of Obama administrationofficials' incorrect statements about how ACA programs wouldoperate.

The Trump administration may have an easier time gettingbipartisan support for legislation to fix the ACA risk program thana Democratic administration would, and Trump, who has been throughbankruptcy reorganizations and faced infuriating government policychanges himself, could see remedying the risk program problems asmore fair to the carriers and better for minimizing the federalgovernment's total ACA risk program-related failure costs.