In announcing the department’s decision to file suit, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said it “would leave much of the multitrillion health insurance industry in the hands of just three mammoth companies, restricting competition in key markets”.
Advertisement
After three years of losses and minimal volume, health insurer Aetna Inc.is pulling back-and almost out altogether-of public health exchanges.
Florida Blue does contrast in several ways with Aetna, Geraghty pointed out, with the company being a nonprofit and serving 700,000 ACA plan enrollees in one state, vs. Aetna serving about 800,000 ACA plan enrollees spread across the U.S. But in a Huffington Post piece, reporters found evidence that Aetna would withdraw if the merger with Humana fell apart.
A company spokeswoman said the insurer has no plans of cutting back.
In June, ongoing dialogue between Aetna and the department about the exchanges turned to discussions about the potential impact of a failed deal on those markets, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Aetna continues to pursue a merger with Humana, even though the federal government moved in July to block the $37 billion deal on antitrust grounds.
Crawford declined to say whether Aetna’s plans were profitable in Pennsylvania this year, or identify which, if any, other states where the insurer is exiting were profitable in 2015 and for the current year.
Another major health insurer says it’s dropping most of its Obamacare coverage.
That pre-tax profit represents the difference between the premiums it received, and what it paid out in claims – $52 million – and the $5.8 million it incurred in administrative expenses, Aetna said in its filing.
“That deterioration, and not the DOJ challenge to our Humana transaction, is ultimately what drove us to announce the narrowing of our public exchange presence for the 2017 plan year”, Crawford said.
Aetna’s announcement that it would exit 11 of 15 states where it offers Obamacare plans leaves residents of Pinal County, Ariz., without options for next year, unless regulators scramble to find a carrier to fill the void.
Aetna shares rose 1 percent to $120.09.
Advertisement
“These changes do not affect coverage for the 2016 plan year”, Aetna spokeswoman Anjie Coplin told the Austin American-Statesman.
