Meanwhile, Rubio, Sessions, Upton and others have called for legislation to ensure the risk-corridors program will remain budget-neutral and not place taxpayers at financial risk.
This debate will become more vociferous in the period before the midterm elections in November. The chance that the risk-corridor arrangement won’t be entirely self-financed puts vulnerable Democrats, who are already facing strong headwinds created by Obamacare, in an even more precarious position.
Finally, and notwithstanding the risk-corridor issue, the data suggest that insurers will respond to having to cover more people who are relatively sicker by raising premiums in 2015 and beyond. As Chet Burrell, the chief executive officer of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, concluded, “Over a period of time, the rates have to go up to catch up with the reality of who enrolled.” If that reality didn’t look good for Obamacare in 2014, it isn’t likely to improve in 2015, either.
So while Obamacare’s exchanges are still some distance from a death spiral, it’s pretty clear that the path ahead for the law––and for the politicians whose fortunes may turn on its success or failure––is fraught with peril in the months and years ahead.
Lanhee Chen is a Bloomberg View columnist. A research fellow at the Hoover Institution who also teaches public policy at Stanford University, he was the policy director of Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.