Those who were anxious about the possibility that republicans could have passed an Obamacare repeal, will definitely be able to rest easy for now. But their repeated effort to kill the current health care law has already done some damage by spreading uncertainty throughout the insurance market, forcing those Insurance providers to raise their rates. This of course just plays into the hands of Republicans who have already established their belief that Obamacare -- otherwise known as the affordable care act (ACA) -- is failing. Republicans have been persistent with spreading this view saying that premiums were sky rocketing, making it less affordable for those who need health care and that providers are also fleeing the ACA's marketplace.

ACA holds on despite GOP sabotage

But already, this isn't just the fault of the insurance providers as they are undeniably running a business. But Republicans have made their claims of Obamacare's problems more profound through legislation to sabotage the health care system, one only has to look at Marco Rubio. Despite this, starting next year, all counties nationwide will have an insurance provider that will provide coverage through the ACA.

That coverage appears to dash away the myth that insurance providers are fleeing the marketplace and adding to the GOP's (Republican Party) unified stance that Obamacare is failing. At the beginning of the year, it was reported that more than 40 - mostly rural - counties were facing the chance that they would not have any providers through the exchange.

With the ACA's ongoing battle with Republicans, another year of counties not having options for coverage would certainly have continued to play into the GOP's stance against the health care law.

At the very worse, about half of the counties nationwide will only have one provider. But the fight over Obamacare has already established enough uncertainty to prevent insurance providers from overwhelmingly trying to join the marketplace.

Many have already pulled out of it or have refused to sign up. This is especially the case for insurance providers who have to rely on certainty in order to function as a business, heading the other way when it isn't there.

Restoring order, stability to insurance providers?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) pointed out in a report that this uncertainty will cause roughly 15 percent of those insurers to raise premiums.

One of the reasons for this is because those insurers have to establish their rates ahead of time which is difficult under this uncertain climate. This week, while Republicans had their deadline to pass a repeal bill for Sept 30, insurers had until Wednesday to sign up for the ACA to provide coverage under the program in time for 2018.

To get a sense of the kind of uncertainty those providers were facing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was holding out to let the Graham-Cassidy bill pass while senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) had restored order, making a bipartisan effort to fix the ACA. Their effort was such that - while it didn't get the kind of reporting by the media that the repeal effort had - the bipartisan bill appeared to be a sure thing.

But, the lack of support by Republicans froze those chances making it too late to make the deadline.

As another sign of uncertainty for providers for the coming months, it's unlikely that a Republican led Congress is going to want to legislate a bipartisan bill to fix the ACA for the rest of the year, an effort that would certainly pass without limits or deadlines. But with the GOP looking to repeal again at the beginning of the year, this too is unlikely. In the meantime, President Trump declared that he would try to work with Democrats to improve health care which might give some hope to insurance providers.
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