Now that we know who our next President will be, the question I keep getting asked is: “What is going to happen to my health insurance?”

My answer – In the short term, nothing.  In the long run…. Well, we’re not exactly sure.

Here is what we know about President Elect Trump’s plan:

• During his campaign, he spoke about repealing the Affordable Care Act. I think now that he has won, he is starting to realize it would be almost impossible to do. He has since stated he likes a few of the provisions of the ACA like guaranteed issue and children being able to stay on their parents plan until age 26. But he also wants to make many changes.
• Another campaign idea focused on giving Americans more options for health insurance – increased competition would make premiums cheaper. One way he wants to do this is to allow carriers to sell plans across state lines. However, with each state having regulations relating to insurance and carriers this may be a tricky and slow change.
• He has also been on record saying he wants subsidies or premium assistance to be age based not income based. This is an interesting precept. He hasn’t gone into much detail, so I am not sure what the implications would be here.

In short, we know changes are coming. We are just not sure what they will be or how soon they will take place. I do feel confident that your 2017 plan will remain the same for all of 2017.  Most changes will probably take a year or two iron out and possibly longer to implement.