Megan McArdle tries to find a reason for the latest exchange extension - if you tried to sign up by March 31, we'll give you just a little more time.
So again, here's the really worrying scenario: The demographics haven't budged, or have only barely improved from earlier months. The White House knows that means that big premium increases are in the offing for 2015, and they're hoping to head them off at least temporarily with this delay. Extending open enrollment, which is essentially what they're doing, would then be a desperate play to get more young, healthy customers into the exchanges, and perhaps to make it a bit harder for insurers to raise rates. In some states, insurers have to file preliminary rate increases in May. And thanks to this latest extension, they won't have final data to back up any requests for a premium hike.
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