Health insurer Anthem (selling plans statewide to people who do not get health coverage through a job, Medicare, Medicaid or any other source), had departed earlier from some other state’s individual health plan markets because the individual market is volatile, shrinking and deteriorating due to continual changes and uncertainty in federal operations, declared recently that it will not sell Obama care plans to new customers in most of Maine in 2018 and current customers will lose federal aid if they stick with Anthem. But, only current customers will be able to re-enroll in their existing Anthem plans for next year as those plans will be sold outside of HealthCare.gov and their customers will no longer be eligible for financial aid that reduces premiums and out-pocket health cost. But, Anthem will continue to offer employer-based health coverage.

This will let the 28,700 current Anthem customers whois now buying plans via HealthCare.gov to keep their existing coverage in 2018 as Maine has a definite renewal law that states customers must be allowed to renew with their current insurer if that insurer is not totally exiting a market. But, the officials made it clear that these plans will be offered in exchange and they will not be provided any monetary assistance or subsidies and will keep open the option of returning to that market on a wide scale in 2019.

Nowadays, planning and pricing for ACA-compliant health plans is becoming difficult due to a deteriorating individual market as well as continuous changes and uncertainty in federal operations.