Is the Afforable Care Act failing

During the debate last night we heard the ACA called the worst disaster ever and it needs to be repealed.  Now we also heard that it needs some fixes.

What actually is the state of the ACA at this point.

• It has achieved one of its major goals which was to reduce the number of unemployed Americans who didn't have health insurance.

• It has eliminated the ability of insurers to refuse coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

• It has allowed young adults to stay on their parents coverage until the age of 26.

• It has required certain preventive care to be provided at no additional out of pocket expense.

Now it has some issues.

• Some areas are seeing less competition as companies drop out because they are unprofitable

• Some of the proposed rate increases are higher than they were in the first few years.
• http://www.bna.com/report-expect-sharp-n57982074279/
• Some plans have pretty high deductibles

• Some plans have limited network providers.

Now, the general idea of these exchanges and the idea of insurance in general is that there is shared risk.  So everyone pays the average cost even though some use a lot more of the services as others.  It was fairly predictable that when people who had been denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions got insurance they would use a of of services.

The idea to offset this was to get younger healthier people enrolled so the average cost would decrease.  There were penalties associated with not having insurance.  The penalties were however too low apparently since the low risk pools have not signed up to the extent expected.

So in our market based economy, the cost will adjust until the companies make enough profit to continue.

So is this the worst disaster imaginable?  Hardly.  A program that achieves its major goals while working through some market forces is hardly a disaster.
Sounds more like a success.