17 January 2017 - Last week, President-elect Donald J. Trump called Obamacare “a complete and total disaster,” and pushed for a swift repeal of the Affordable Care Act and a replacement within weeks. 

But at the moment, there is no workable replacement. So what happens to the individual insurance market — whose problems did not start with the Affordable Care Act and will not be easily solved — when it is destabilised so dramatically?

From my point of view as a former health insurance company chief executive, “total disaster” would also describe any Republican repeal-and-delay plan. Although my former colleagues in the insurance industry are too cowed by the president-elect to say so, Republican insistence on repeal without having a meaningful replacement at the same time will drive most insurers out of the individual market and leave the 10% of Americans now covered by some aspect of the A.C.A. without coverage — especially if Medicaid expansion is rolled back as well.

Read New York Times Op-Ed article