http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-ol-trump-obamacare-exchanges-20170215-story.html

With the drive to “repeal and replace” Obamacare losing steam, the Trump administration quietly moved to shore up a key feature of the healthcare law this week: the state exchanges where people shop for non-group coverage. And to its credit, Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services zeroed in on some of the factors that have led a handful of major insurers to leave the exchanges.

But before you praise (or condemn) Trump for coming to Obamacare’s rescue, consider this: Another arm of the new administration has taken a step that could undo much of the work the department is trying to do, and leave the exchanges no better off — and possibly in worse shape — than they are today.

The real threat to the exchanges’ health remains the specter of Congress enacting a law that repeals all or part of Obamacare in two or three years. Planting such a legislative time bomb would have an immediate impact, sending the market for non-group insurance policies quickly into chaos, according to analysts from both sides of the political spectrum. As John Rother of the pro-Obamacare National Coalition on Health Care put it, “[N]o market stabilization effort can succeed if policymakers disrupt existing coverage arrangements rather than improving on them.”

A core problem for the exchanges, which serve people not covered by a large employer’s group health plan, is that the people shopping there are running up larger healthcare bills than insurers expected. That’s resulted in losses for many insurers, persuading some to withdraw from the market and others to jack up premiums sharply.

Some critics argue that these trends are signs of Obamacare’s impending doom; the law’s supporters say they’re just growing pains, and there’s still plenty of evidence that the exchanges are sustainable (albeit with some adjustments). California’s experience is a case in point — its exchange, Covered California, still offers shoppers two or more options in every region, and its premium increases have been modest compared to the rest of the country’s.