“We are focusing our individual on-exchange presence where we believe we are best positioned to provide access to quality care at an affordable cost”, the company said in an email.
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“Aetna’s announcement proves the larger point that private insurance companies are willing to deny care to make a few extra dollars”.
A spokesman for Aetna, Walt Cherniak, said the company’s national membership in the exchanges was 950,000 last year, but that the number had dropped to 750,000 this year. “So with Aetna throwing in the towel, I think it really shows the way this law is structured, and particularly the way it’s been implemented, just does not work”. Click to learn how it will help you improve patient care and more.
The moves by Aetna and UnitedHealthcare follow decisions a year ago by Assurant Health to exit the health insurance market altogether and by Consumers’ Choice to fold. But John Bertko, chief actuary with the exchange, said this has more to do with business than politics. “The estimates are that altogether insurance companies lost $4 billion in both 2014 and 2015”.
“Any loss [of an insurer] is a blow to competition, ” said Bill Custer, a health insurance expert at Georgia State University.
“They are very likely losing the same amount in 2016”, Turner said. “It is further evidence of how badly we need a public option for all through Medicare in this country”, declared Kait Sweeney, press secretary for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC).
Asked about the fines – which are levied against people who don’t have health insurance and don’t purchase Obamacare – Blase told a CNBC host that people are choosing to pay a fine instead of purchasing the healthcare because the plans are prohibitively expensive.
“Lots of that magnitude couldn’t continue for subsequent years so we had to make a decision on reducing costs”, Hutchings said. “We’re seeing that already in the requests for premium increases next year – in some cases 40, 50 or 60 percent increases”. The average subsidy is $230 per month, she said. While Slavitt certainly doesn’t want to see so many insurers leave, he said this trend reflects a new market shake out. “That’s exactly what’s happening now”, Turner said. Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America’s independent news network.
Subsidized coverage – offered to people earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level (about $47,000 for an individual or $97,000 for a family of four) – is available only via the public exchanges.
Critics of Obamacare fear this predictable outcome will be used by big-government proponents to contend private coverage can not meet the health-care needs of the American public and that a public option or even single-payer health care is the solution. Advocates have long-said that pitting financial risk against public health is one of the major pitfalls of for-profit health insurance. They are the nation’s largest insurer. They are Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, AmeriHealth of New Jersey, Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey and Oscar Health Insurance.
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Chris Jennings, an informal adviser on health care to the Clinton campaign, said it was important to keep in mind how poorly the individual market for health insurance worked before the health law took effect.
