Editor's note: This story originally stated: "In Illinois, Blue Cross Blue Shield, which provides 80 percent of ACA plans in the state, announced that it was axing commissions." It has been updated to reflect that commissions are being cut on individual policies starting April 1, as originally reported by the Chicago Tribute.
It's not just insurers that are getting fed up with the Affordable Care Act and are threatening to leave the state exchanges. Insurance brokers are also giving up on trying to sign customers for ACA health care plans.
A number of insurance companies have stopped paying broker commissions for customers directed to their ACA plans. Insurers appear to have determined they aren't profiting from those customers, so they don't want to reward brokers who are responsible for them.
What insurers say, however, is that eliminating broker fees is one way that they can keep premiums down.
In Connecticut, for instance, two of the insurance carriers that offer plans on the state-run exchange — Anthem and ConnectiCare — say they may stop offering commissions to brokers next year.
That's a big problem in Connecticut, where brokers are currently responsible for 40 percent of exchange customers. Eliminating brokers from the ACA process elsewhere also poses a major obstacle to the Obama administration's efforts to increase enrollment.
Other states have seen similarly dramatic decisions from big insurers. In Illinois, Blue Cross Blue Shield, which provides 80 percent of ACA plans in the state, announced that it was axing commissions on individual policies starting April 1 of this year.
While insurers have complained that ACA customers' risk profile has been higher than expected, the only way to improve the situation will be to get more healthy people to sign up for plans. It's not clear to what extent taking brokers out of the process will affect the Obama administration's attempts to boost enrollment among young people, but it certainly won't help.
Insurers are particularly reluctant to take on new ACA customers at certain points of the year, when they suspect that a disproportionate number of sick customers are trying to sign up. That's why some carriers stopped paying commissions for customers who signed up during "special enrollment periods," which they claimed were being abused by people who were forgoing insurance until they fell ill.
Some ACA officials worry that insurers have used broker commissions as a way to maneuver around the law's requirement that they take on any customer, regardless of preexisting conditions.
"It flies in the face of the ACA," Peter Lee, the executive director of the California ACA exchange, told USA Today in May. "[T]o say in code to agents, 'Don't bring us sick people', or to make it harder for some to enroll."
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