Health Law Is Fostering Competition, Administration Says
WASHINGTON — The new health care law is injecting more competition into health insurance markets nationwide, drawing additional insurance companies into states long dominated by a few carriers, Obama administration officials said Thursday.
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Such competition offers the prospect of more choices for millions of consumers who will be shopping for insurance this fall. Companies entering the market could also put downward pressure on prices, partly offsetting factors that tend to increase premiums. The competition could pose new challenges to Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, which dominate the individual insurance markets in many states.
The administration gave a snapshot of applications filed by insurers in 19 states where the new insurance markets, or exchanges, will be run entirely by the federal government. The data was preliminary and incomplete and could not be independently verified. It was supplemented by federal officials with information from California and several other states that have released data on applications from insurers.
These states account for 80 percent of the seven million people expected to obtain coverage next year through the government-run markets being established under President Obama’s health care law.
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