I have worked with insurance companies that sell health insurance on the public exchanges.
A lot of health insurance plan decisions on rating, benefits and costs are typically made months in advance, well before the public gets the chance to shop for the plans--typically 6 to 9 months before OEP is open for the general public. If these companies don't even believe that the ACA will exist in that time, they might already be putting the brakes on any efforts internally as to not waste any efforts.
On top of that, a lot of big insurance companies like Humana and the like have lost a lot of money on the ACA exchanges. It's partly due to their own inexperience servicing potentially low-income markets, but it was also due to very high infrastructure and maintenance costs in getting the IT connectivity and maintenance set up for the exchanges. The infrastructure of connecting their systems to the public exchanges were very high, thanks in no part due to bungled guidance by state regulators as well as thirsty contractors solving exorbitant rates to help bring it all together. It's a shame, because its my understanding that the back end IT infrastructure only started consistently working well this last OEP (as well as it should have worked years ago).
The indecision from the Trump administration, combined with the inability for HHS to consistently hit their projected enrollment numbers on the exchange....Obamacare is in big big trouble regardless of what the Republicans do or don't do, and their indecision certainly isn't helping.
I would only expect carriers to stay in marketplaces that are profitable and population dense. I think low income folks in rural areas are going to be in trouble.
