Competitive markets for individual health insurance

A more dynamic individual insurance market could match benefits with individual preferences, provide more portable and permanent coverage, and stimulate consumer-focused service. Necessary reforms, such as tax parity and targeted assistance to high-risk pools, would enable individual coverage to expand efficiently. In contrast, requirements for guaranteed issue and community rating drive low-risk persons out of voluntary individual markets and raise overall premiums. Guaranteed renewability and switching costs would stabilize individual-market risk pools. As the individual market becomes more representative of the overall population, insurers' perceived needs to underwrite and market selectively will lessen, making administrative loading factors less significant.