UnitedHealth warns it may exit Obamacare Plans

“The combination of these factors suggests the overall exchange market profile is more negative than we had planned, with new market enrollment growth developing more slowly”, Hemsley said.

The announcement came amid a spate of tough news for Obamacare.

The ACA regulations would also apply to state exchanges that allow large employers to buy coverage through them starting in 2017.

The company has already scaled back its marketing efforts for individual insurance policies sold on exchanges for 2016.

Health insurer Aetna Inc said on Friday its individual commercial business has continued to perform in line with its expectations, echoing smaller rival Centene Corp after UnitedHealth Group Inc said it may exit the business.

Health insurance companies owed more than $7.1 million in rebates to Arkansas consumers and businesses because the companies collected too much in premiums previous year compared with what they spent on medical care, federal officials announced Thursday.

Unlike Blue Cross, UnitedHealthcare largely stayed out of the exchanges in 2014, the first year of the Affordable Care Act’s public marketplaces for consumers to shop for insurance.

Anthem, the nation’s second largest insurer, said its enrollment in the public exchanges fell by 69,000 people to 824,000 in the third quarter. But Mendelson said restrictions on the adequacy of these provider networks might be “difficult for plans to meet”.

SterneAgee analyst Brian Wright said there are issues around the exchanges but he sees “recent volatility in hospital shares as providing compelling value for investors”.

“When health plans can not rely on the government to meet its obligations, individuals and families are harmed as a result”, said Tavenner. But another survey said that many covered by such plans struggle to afford deductibles and often skip needed health care.

“It’s time to shop for a health insurance plan”, United HealthCare’s announcer says in an online commercial.

“Today’s statement by one issuer is not indicative of the marketplace’s strength and viability”, Wakana said in an e-mail.

“We think it’s way too early to call it quits on the ACA and on the exchanges”.

“The Obama administration has to stabilize this market if they want there to be an individual insurance market in this country five years from now”, says Dan Mendelson, president of consulting firm Avalere Health, which has more than a dozen insurance clients.

Former insurance executive and consultant Robert Laszewski said the administration needs to relax the rules to give insurers more flexibility to design plans that would attract healthier people. A stiffer penalty for not carrying insurance begins January 1, and certain grandfathered non-ACA compliant plans will be phased out.

Leemore Dafny at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management said just because UnitedHealth took a hit doesn’t mean all insurers will take a bath.

The survey found that 40 percent of people with high-deductible plans said they did not go to the doctor when sick, avoided preventive care, skipped recommended tests or did not go to a specialist despite a medical need.

Molina CEO J. Mario Molina said that Molina was targeting low-income people, similar to its Medicaid patients, and that it was not having the same problems as UnitedHealth.

What do you think of UnitedHealth’s warning that it may pull out of Obamacare?

If there are not enough of the former, the insurers will find it harder to make money. In fact, the insurer has blamed the federal health care law for permitting people to change plans.

But the insurer expects improvement, in part because it is learning more about the customers it serves through this business. “If enrollment stagnates, we could very well see insurers thinking twice about their participation”.