Study: Health plan cancelations under ACA may have been unavoidable

Some have blamed the Affordable Care Act for the recent cancelations of nongroup health insurance plans, but a new study highlighted that these are just normal parts of the insurance benefits market.

Conducted by an assistant professor at Harvard School of Public Health, the study examined the stability of the insurance market before healthcare reform. It uncovered that high turnover is not entirely out of the norm, as every year as many as 6.2 million people can leave the health insurance market.

According to CBS News, this study is the first to showcase the stability of health coverage across the nation. However, while the ACA may not have had much of an impact in the number of people losing coverage this year, CBS News reported the Obama administration forecasts that the ACA may make the market more stable in the next few years. The transitional policy fix that allows insurers to keep existing plans even if they don’t completely comply with the ACA until 2017 may contribute to this.

“By the time it gets to 2016, I don’t think under any circumstances there’s going to be a wave of cancelation notices,” CBS News reported an administration official told reporters last month.