Still, although plans will have to be canceled again next October, there are reasons to believe the issue won’t be as damaging as it has been over the past two months. For starters, it’s not clear how many plans will actually be extended for another year. Several states have rejected Obama’s proposal, and insurers aren’t sure whether it’s worth the trouble to resurrect policies they have already canceled.
Consumers whose plans are canceled next year will also have a much easier time finding a replacement. Because HealthCare.gov, the primary Obamacare enrollment website, was functioning so poorly this year, consumers were seeing their plans canceled yet had no easy way to even find out whether they could get tax subsidies to help buy a new policy.
Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and a former communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Democrats’ anxiety over plan cancellations will subside if the administration meets its goal for fixing HealthCare.gov by the end of this month.
The impact of the employer mandate is less clear. Tracy Watts, who leads the national health reform team at the Mercer consulting firm, said employers generally firm up their health care plans by Labor Day, with some smaller firms waiting until October.
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