The company move would take it out of 546 counties in 11 states, leaving it active in 242 counties in four states: Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska and Virginia.
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CBS covered the fact that the third largest health insurance company was pulling back two-thirds of the plans offered under the Affordable Care Act due to financial losses.
Aetna’s announcement comes on the heels of an announcement by Anthem that, in a reversal of expectations, it is now projecting mid-single digit losses on the individual plans it sells on the exchanges. Even if you are able to and want to stay with the same plan, it is still a good idea to check how much your plan will cost relative to other plans on the market.
“It is very likely that we would need to leave the public exchange business entirely and plan for additional business efficiencies should our deal ultimately be blocked”, Bertolini continued.
Aetna wouldn’t be the only insurer to link its exchange position to a hoped-for deal.
Remaining insurers might raise their monthly premiums as a result, but more than 8 in 10 consumers on the marketplaces who get government subsidies would be insulated. He said “this broken law…is slowly imploding under its regulatory red tape”, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“It’s a concern for us”, Stephen Briggs, a spokesman for Arizona’s state insurance regulator, told the Journal. In one county in Arizona, there now would be no insurers offering exchange plans.
The letter – obtained by Huffington Post via a FOIA request – was dated July 5. The pullouts by UnitedHealthcare and Aetna mean there will be only one carrier in the state in 2017 – Blue Cross and Blue Shield of SC.
A number of factors are driving these decisions, including lower-than-expected enrollment in Obamacare and an imbalance in the ratio of sick to healthy people that providers have to cover, the insurers say.
There’s no question many insurers are losing big money on Obamacare. The company “may expand our footprint in the future should there be meaningful exchange-related policy improvements”.
As of today, Aetna’s exit leaves all of SC and most of North Carolina with just one insurer next year, according to a Kaiser analysis.
Oh, how the lowly voter can be buffeted by political whirlwinds when insurers battle with the federal government.
If you bought health insurance under the Affordable Care Act we have important information you need to know.
SEE MORE: Obamacare’s Almost Six Years Old. However, Paul Hattis, professor of public health at Tufts School of Medicine, doesn’t believe Obamacare is in any danger (though he does think there’s room to improve the law).
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“This is an overly optimistic assessment of a market that continues to undergo significant changes for both consumers and health plans”, Marilyn Tavenner, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement.
