Three Critical Measures of Exchanges' Impact Could Take Several Years to Assess

Amid all of the sound bite media coverage surrounding the opening of exchanges on October 1, Kaiser Health News urges stakeholders not to jump to conclusions based on the first few days, or even months, of the new health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. While people can enroll for insurance until the end of March, real assessments of these exchanges will most likely take years. Three issues - enrollment, "benefit shock," and future premiums - are what will determine whether the exchanges are working as intended. And we won't know the impact of how these three issues are addressed until 2016 or even later.