Anthem’s current network excludes BJC HealthCare facilities and Washington University Physicians, but includes most other hospitals and providers. If true, this would be the least surprising development in the past six years of Obamacare fiascos. In 2017, Aetna will only offer insurance policies in 242 counties scattered across four states-that’s a almost 70-percent decrease from its 2016 offerings in 778 counties across 15 states. But choices are getting scarcer by the year.
Advertisement
“While I remain very concerned about the rates proposed for many health plans for 2017, and the impact these rates may have on consumers, I am also committed to ensuring Pennsylvania remain an attractive place to do business so consumers continue to have choices in this market”, she noted in an emailed statement. In one county in Arizona, there now would be no insurers offering exchange plans. In 2016, it was 215. And soon the vaunted “marketplace” of ObamaCare will exist in theory only, because shoppers can’t shop if no one is open for business. The much larger market of employer-sponsored insurance is not part of the health law exchanges. But opening markets up across state (and national) lines is a silly idea, I bet. Or 2) Aetna is retaliating after the Justice Department refused to let them gobble up a major competitor? The exact opposite has been true, and some are even losing their jobs.
“Finally, based on our analysis to date, we believe it is very likely that we would need to leave the public exchange business entirely and plan for additional business inefficiencies should our deal ultimately be blocked”, Bertolini wrote. Specifically, if the DOJ sues to enjoin the transaction, we will immediately take action to reduce our 2017 exchange footprint. Insurers have struggled to enroll enough healthy people to balance the claims they pay from high-cost customers, and they have complained about steep shortfalls in support from government programs created to help them.
Aetna Inc. warned in July that it would exit much of the individual Obamacare health insurance market if the government challenged its deal to buy rival Humana Inc (HUM.N), according to a letter it sent to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The lack of competition will, of course, lead to higher premium costs – and much of that bad news will be breaking just prior to election day – with open enrollment beginning November 1.
Stephen Briggs, a spokesman for the Arizona regulators, says the state can’t force insurers to offer coverage on the exchange. “So Anthem will nearly certainly be the largest footprint”. Aetna also reported having total pretax losses of more than $430 million since January 2014.
But Aetna claims its reason for leaving is that the insurance pool on the exchange is less healthy than average.
From the beginning, Aetna was a “champion” of the exchanges, Meuse said, and one month after the Justice Department blocked its merger, it has made a decision to sharply scale back its individual offerings.
Earlier this month, Mr. Bertolini said Aetna had seen double-digit cost increases from its ACA enrollees, with specialty drugs being a major driver.
Moving forward, will a company be looked upon more favorably by a Hillary administration if it continues to sell plans in the exchanges?
Company critics interpret the letter as a veiled threat. You never know, it might happen. And Cigna, a larger insurer, has said it will move into some North Carolina counties for 2017. They both work for the same president, of course.
The Affordable Care Act, rammed through Congress so the Democrats could realize a dream of five decades, hasn’t taken even five years to unravel.
Advertisement
The fatally flawed health care program is slowly, and inevitably, succumbing to its wounds, but not before inflicting millions of Americans with mediocre, overpriced health insurance.
