Analysis finds health law having mixed impact on insurance marketplace competition

A seven-state snapshot of enrollment by the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that the overhaul has not significantly boosted competition. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent part of the Foundation.)

The Washington Post's Wonkblog: Obamacare Was Supposed to Make Insurance Markets More Competitive. Has it?
Before the Affordable Care Act, about 30 states had a single insurer that accounted for more than half of their participants in the individual market, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The law's effect in each state's insurance market will vary based on history, regulation and demographics (Millman, 3/17).

Bloomberg: Obamacare Shuffles Health Plan Market Share, Report Finds
A snapshot of Obamacare enrollment in seven states suggests the law hasn't significantly increased competition in health insurance markets, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported. In California, for example, four big insurers have largely carved up the state's market (Wayne, 3/18).

The Hill: Study: Obamacare Has Mixed Record On Spurring Competition
The Obamacare marketplaces have spurred increased competition among the largest insurers in two of the states with the most enrollees while reducing competition in some smaller states, according to a new study. The Kaiser Family Foundation analysis released on Monday looked at seven states running their own exchanges and compared the percentage market share held by the largest insurers in those states before and after the Obamacare rollout (Easley, 3/17).

Politico Pro: Report: ACA Impact On Marketplace Competition Mixed
The Affordable Care Act is having a mixed impact on insurance competition, according to a new analysis of seven states running their own exchanges. The insurance marketplaces in California, New York and Minnesota are slightly to significantly more competitive than they were before the Obamacare exchanges opened, while Connecticut's and Washington's are less competitive, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation report released Monday. The marketplaces in Rhode Island and Nevada remain about the same. The report compared preliminary exchange enrollment data broken down by insurers to individual market share data in 2012 (Villacorta, 3/17).

Meanwhile, in related news --

Modern Healthcare: Flurry Of New ACA Rules Adds To Insurers' Uncertainty
Hundreds of pages of proposed federal rules and guidances for insurers seeking to participate in the state and federal exchanges in 2015 are raising questions among insurance experts about whether they add to the regulatory and market uncertainty surrounding the healthcare reform law (Demko, 3/17).