Kristen Schwab

Past experience shows that when premiums rise, healthier people tend to be the first to drop coverage.

And when lots of people, especially healthy people, do drop coverage, Jennifer Sullivan at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says what happens next is simple economics.

If there are fewer people in the marketplace to spread risk across, then insurers have to charge those smaller number of people more in order to provide the services that they're providing.

They already are.

ACA premiums are nearly 60% more expensive this year than they were last year, on average.

And with people continuing to drop out of the marketplace, Sullivan says they're likely to go up again.

So people are squeezed right now and could be squeezed even more next year.

People who get health insurance through an employer are less likely to see their premiums go up significantly next year.

But Sabrina Corlett at Georgetown's Center on Health Insurance Reform says hospitals and providers will likely see costs go up.

As more people become uninsured, they will forego necessary care, they'll skip prescriptions, and they'll get sicker.

And they'll end up in the emergency room.

And hospitals will treat them, and in many cases, will end up footing the bill for those who can't afford to pay.

And as those costs go up for hospitals, these uncompensated care costs, they have to be passed on.

And in many cases, she says, they will eventually be passed on to you and me.

I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

That is potentially as close to transitory as you can get.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

You bet.

John Ebis owns a landscaping and design firm in Minneapolis.

This morning, he was on his way to build a new set of doors for a custom-designed shed.