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Health insurers across the country are making plans to dramatically raise Obamacare premiums or exit marketplaces amid growing exasperation with the Trump administration’s erratic management, inconsistent guidance and seeming lack of understanding of basic healthcare issues. At the same time, state insurance regulators — both Democrat and Republican — have increasingly concluded they cannot count on the Trump administration to help them ensure that consumers will have access to a health plan next year. (Levey, 5/18)

Republicans are seizing on early signs of premium increases and diminishing insurer participation on next year’s insurance exchanges as proof the Affordable Care Act is floundering and must be overturned, pitting them against Democrats who say the GOP repeal effort itself is to blame. The finger-pointing is taking on new urgency as Republican lawmakers cite the ACA’s problems to drum up support for their legislation to topple the law, often called Obamacare. A bill passed the House earlier this month, and the Senate is now trying to craft its own version. (Armour, Wilde Mathews and Radnofsky, 5/18)

The two remaining insurers on Connecticut’s health insurance exchange now have until Sept. 1 to decide whether to return in 2018, the exchange’s CEO said Thursday. The previous deadline was at the beginning of July. (Constable, 5/18)

Word that Obamacare is failing apparently hasn’t reached California. Covered California is preparing for a three-month open enrollment period this fall, and the exchange is operating solidly in the black. Covered California’s open enrollment period for 2018 coverage will run from Nov. 15 to Jan. 31, 2018 — the same as last year — despite the federal government’s plans to shorten HealthCare.gov's enrollment period to six weeks, Peter Lee, the exchange’s executive director, said at Thursday’s Covered California board meeting. (Colliver, 5/18)