Posted on 09/23/2016 6:28:25 PM PDT by Mean Daddy
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska said Friday it won’t sell individual health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace next year because of continuing losses.
Blue Cross’ departure removes the state’s largest health insurer from the individual marketplace, leaving only Aetna and Medica Health to offer individual policies on the Nebraska’s exchange for 2017.
Steve Martin, the chief executive of Blue Cross, told The World-Herald that the company has lost $140 million on the exchange policies since 2014. If the trend continued, losses could total $250 million by the end of 2017, he said.
As of this year, around 20,000 people out of Blue Cross of Nebraska’s 750,000 clients have individual exchange policies.
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Martin said too often federal officials let people buy insurance just before they are due to receive an expensive health treatment and then drop their coverage immediately afterward. As a result, many of them pay no premiums when they are well, only when they are sick.
(Excerpt) Read more at omaha.com ...
A lot of folks right here on FR who had read the fine print of this disaster foresaw something like this.
.
Unexpected!
*DRINK*
Justice Roberts ruled that the penalty had to be low enough to qualify as a reasonable tax.
So Catch-22: low penalty — people only buy when they’re sick; high penalty — it no longer qualifies as a tax in Justice Roberts’ world.
Of course, that’s all over now. Obamacare’s future depends on who wins the WH.
Wow. Who coulda seen this coming?
The insurance companies ain’t charities. They need to make money and maximize value, or else their shareholders will dump them. Good news that “better” insurance companies drop out... I’m sure third-rate crappy ones will try to take its place. The whole thing needs to implode. No more freebies.
“Obamacare’s future depends on who wins the WH.”
It is not just about “Obamacare”, but socialized healthcare. You can get rid of Obamacare and “replace” with equally socialist program. There should be NO “replace”. Just get rid of Obamacare and let freemarket decide what people pay with their healthcare. I should not be forced to pay for somebody else’s cancer care. Or diabetes. NO “precondition” tyranny!
I want no part of any of it! I just want to be left alone.
I was just glad that we got a 20 year stay of execution, from 1994, when Hillarycare went down in flames, to 2014, when the Obamacare penalty kicked in.
this is a big deal
state laws and blues require risk reserves and that is not an easy startup threshold. there is no money in the individual market as it is now corrupted by obamacare. for a blue this is a big deal.
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