The Nation’s Biggest Insurer May Cry “No Mas” on Obamacare

In a statement on Friday, both companies backed their 2015 forecasts and said they remained committed to the exchanges.

“This year, people looking for coverage in the marketplace continue to have a robust number of plan choices and as the data shows the marketplace is stable, vibrant and a growing source of coverage for new consumers”. The end result should be a continued erosion toward these Medicaid managed care companies as more of the action, and enrollment, shifts into their orbit. ‘We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself’.

UnitedHealth was never the exchanges’ biggest fan. Fewer people than expected are signing up with the exchanges.

A survey by HealthPocket.com found that the majority of Americans consider premiums of $100 or less to be affordable, but Obamacare plans typically exceed that figure, something that many believe is contributing to the number of people who choose to forego insurance and instead pay penalty fees.

UnitedHealth cut its outlook for 2015.

How dare the Obama administration bail out insurance companies with our money in order to hide ObamaCare’s failures.

The insurer announced losses of $425 million on ObamaCare plans, and CEO Stephen Hemsley said, “We can not sustain these losses”, and “we saw no indication of anything actually improving”. “United also said Thursday it’s booking $350 million in losses tied to the 2015 performance of its ACA plans”.

Jefferies analyst Brian Tanquilut said “the potential impact from the exchange risk seems to be more than priced in to the (hospital) stocks at current levels especially since they’re doing big buybacks near term”.

Washington -UnitedHealthcare may quit the nation’s insurance exchanges, but Aetna and Anthem say they are staying and will work on problems with the marketplaces. You could call it Rahm’s revenge-the whole point of passing a more ambitious, more politically risky version of Obamacare was to get enough healthy people to buy coverage, and that’s exactly what hasn’t been happening. The change is due to premium rates being set to reflect insurers’ spending on healthcare.

It now looks pretty clear that insurers are having a very bad experience in these markets.

Since November 2013, shortly after the Obamacare insurance exchanges first opened amid major technical snafus and missteps, no more than 54 percent of Americans have given solid grades to the quality of health care in this country. Example: “The Affordable Care Act is working just fine”. That’s a faster pace than a year ago, though the second week of sign-ups in 2014 included the Thanksgiving holiday week. According to Helmsley, the people who bought insurance from them through the exchange, but outside of the open enrollment period, are averaging about 20 percent more expensive than the rest of the pool.

However, federal government spokesperson Jonathan Gold called the statement by one issuer “not indicative of the marketplace’s strength and viability”. Patients with medical needs who had not been able to find coverage were more likely to enroll first in these exchanges, ahead of healthy patients who would contribute premium payments but not use as much health care.

Aetna and Anthem said in regulatory filings that their individual insurance businesses, which include the plans created by President Barack Obama’s national healthcare reform law, had performed in line with projections through October.