Free Republic

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...

The Obamacare insurance co-ops have collapsed. Of the original 23, only three are expected to survive past 2017. The insurance companies are losing hundreds of millions of dollars on the healthcare insurance exchanges. Their reaction is to pull out of a number of them in order to reduce their exposure; a process they repeatedly employ to shed under-performing products called “purging”. To make up for these losses, insurers are expected to raise 2017 premiums across the board on all policies. The Kaiser Foundation expects an average increase of nine percent for policies on the exchanges, but in the individual market,...

Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey is folding after the state’s insurance commissioner put the Obamacare co-op in “rehabilitation” due to its hazardous financial condition. The co-op had a liability of $46.3 million under the Affordable Care Act’s risk adjustment program, according to the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance. That program was designed to transfer money between insurers in case one insurer had more costly enrollees “Despite our hard work and growing customer base, the unfortunate necessity for complying with the [Affordable Care Act’s] risk adjustment mandate has put the company under considerable financial strain,” said Tom Dwyer,...

It's looking like a lot of people are going to have little Obamacare choice next year.One-third of the United States may have just a single insurer to pick from on Obamacare marketplaces in 2017, an analysis released Friday suggests. Seven entire states are projected to have just one carrier in 2017: Alaska, Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wyoming, according to research by the Avalere consultancy. And more than half of the country, 55 percent, may end up having two or fewer insurers to choose from on those government-run exchanges, Avalere said. "And there may be some sub-region...

If you rely on health insurance provided by companies aligned with the Affordable Care Act marketplace in Pennsylvania, prepare yourself for sticker shock when it’s time to pay those premiums in the fall. Valley residents enrolled in the ACA marketplace can choose from programs offered by Capital Advantage, Geisinger, Highmark, UPMC Health Options, Geisinger Health Plan, Geisinger Quality Options, and Keystone Health Plan Central. All are proposing significant rate increases for monthly premiums in 2017.

UnitedHealthcare, Humana—and now Aetna—are abandoning Obamacare exchanges because they’re unprofitable. Meanwhile, for the first time in 10 years, the U.S. death rate has increased. CDC researcher Andrew Fenelon told the Associated Press: “…it is quite rare to see it [a death rate increase] for the whole population. … Many countries in Europe are witnessing declines in mortality, so the gap between the U.S. and other countries is growing.” For 80 percent of the past decade, President Obama has been president. Obamacare was unconstitutionally rammed through Congress on Christmas Eve of 2009. Isn’t it interesting that in 2016—with Obamacare in full...

Freefall Remember when Democrats, still in the midst of shoving ObamaCare down the throats of an unwilling nation, argued that it would actually be “market-based”? Democrats don’t know anything about how truly free markets work, of course, but their argument was that the ObamaCare exchanges were basically competitive marketplaces in which consumers could shop for the insurance that would make sense for them. OK, granted, it’s a marketplace operating under the artificially imposed and completely insane parameters imposed by the government. And OK, what we commonly call health “insurance” isn’t really anything like a real insurance product. And OK, the...

Aetna, the No. 3 U.S. health insurer, on Monday said that due to persistent financial losses on Obamacare plans, it will sell individual insurance on the government-run online marketplaces in only four states next year, down from the current 15 states. Aetna's decision follows similar moves from UnitedHealth and Humana, which have cited similar concerns about financial losses on these exchanges created under President Barack Obama's national healthcare reform law.

Aetna is sharply cutting its participation in Obamacare exchanges for 2017. The health insurer said it will offer individual Affordable Care Act exchange plans in just four states, down from 15 this year, in an effort to reduce its losses. "As a strong supporter of public exchanges as a means to meet the needs of the uninsured, we regret having to make this decision," Chairman and CEO Marc Bertolini said in a statement. The insurance giant says it will offer ACA exchange plans in Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska and Virginia, slashing its Obamacare footprint by 70 percent next year. It will...

Blue Shield of California (BSC) will be shutting down for four days following Labor Day weekend as a way to stop the financial bleeding resulting from losses in “Covered California,” the state’s Obamacare exchange program. The change will “affect most of [BSC’s] 6,000 employees in California,” the San Francisco Business Times reports, although the “exact number of workers involved hasn’t yet been tabulated.” But BSC hopes that the move could save “an estimated $4 million.” According to the Times, BSC spokesman Steve Shivinsky said, “This is certainly not normal for us. We’re definitely seeing some income challenges as of mid-year.”

The health insurance exchanges that are the beating heart of Obamacare are on the edge of collapse, with premiums rising sharply for ever narrower provider networks, non-profit health co-ops shuttering their doors, and even the biggest insurance companies heading for the exits amid mounting losses. Even the liberal Capitol Hill newspaper is warning of a possible “Obamacare meltdown” this fall. Three states — Alaska, Alabama, and Wyoming — are already down to just a single insurance company, as are large parts of several other states, totaling at least 664 counties. UnitedHealth is pulling out completely, Humana is pulling out of...

The partial withdrawal of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota from the ObamaCare marketplace, driven out by staggering financial losses, is another important milestone in the collapse of the ill-conceived and inaccurately named Affordable Care Act. Providers have been bailing out of ObamaCare across the land, but not Blue Cross/Blue Shield providers. It’s not a total departure from the market, as CEO Michael Guyette took pains to explain at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: In a sign of continuing tumult in the health insurance industry, the state’s largest insurer said Thursday it will no longer offer its traditional suite of flexible...

UnitedHealth is exiting California's Obamacare exchange as part of its exodus from the law's individual marketplaces. The state's Obamacare exchange, Covered California, told Kaiser Health News on Tuesday that the largest U.S. insurer is leaving the entire individual market in the state. Obamacare comprises a majority of the individual market, which is for people who don't get insurance through their job. UnitedHealth has been in the exchange for only about a year and has about 1,200 enrollees. Covered California had more than 425,000 people enroll overall in the latest open enrollment period. Earlier this year, UnitedHealth announced it was leaving...

Big health plans stung by losses in the first few years of the U.S. health law’s implementation are seeking hefty premium increases for individual plans sold through insurance exchanges in more than a dozen states. The insurers’ proposed rates for individual coverage in states that have made their 2017 requests public largely bear out health plans’ grim predictions about their challenges under the health-care overhaul. According to the insurers’ filings with regulators, large plans in states including New York, Pennsylvania and Georgia are seeking to raise rates by 20% or more. In states such as Florida and Maryland, insurers are...

Insurers on the New York health exchange are requesting rate hikes averaging in excess of 17%, with UnitedHealthcare going as high as a whopping 45.6%. UnitedHealthcare has already announced that they would exit most of the Affordable Care Act state exchanges in which they operate in 2017, New York being one of the few exceptions. The biggest health insurer in the country announced that it lost $475 million on the ACA exchanges last year and could lose another $500 million this year. They explained that states in which they would continue to serve – like New York – would be...

Health-insurance customers in a growing number of mostly rural regions will have just one insurer’s plans to choose from on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges next year, as some companies pull out of unprofitable markets. The entire states of Alaska and Alabama are expected to have only one insurer on the health law’s signature online marketplaces next year, according to state regulators. The same is expected to be true in parts of several other states, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arizona and Oklahoma, state regulators said. So far, more than 650 counties appear on track to have just one insurer on...

After raising its premiums for coverage on the Obamacare exchange by 36.3 percent for 2016, the state's dominant health insurer is heralding another increase of the "same order of magnitude" for 2017. BlueCross BlueShield claims it lost more than $150 million in 2015 when its rates were among the lowest in the land. But the 36.3 percent increase for 2016, the largest of any state, brings Tennessee rates to just about the national average. So how on Earth can costs be going up so exponentially to justify such a rate increase on the part of a nonprofit insurance company whose...

Federal health officials refuse to give Congress hundreds of subpoenaed documents on Obamacare’s failed co-ops so that people will continue enrolling in the deeply troubled program, a congressional leader said Tuesday. Twelve of the 23 co-ops created in 2011 under Obamacare at a cost of $2.4 billion have failed, and another eight of the remaining 11 are likely to go under this year. But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) won’t hand over documents subpoenaed months ago by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz  82% , who chairs the House...

On Tuesday, the largest private health insurance provider in the U.S., United Healthcare, announced that it would be pulling its plans out of the ObamaCare exchanges in all but a few states. Among a continuing string of bad news for President’ Obama’s Affordable Care Act, this one should stand out as an indicator that the ACA’s collapse is accelerating. Conservatives need to be ready to explain why and to present solutions, because advocates for fully socialized medicine will be ready to turn the collapsing exchanges to their advantage. All of the deficiencies in Obamacare’s structure have been well documented. High...

ObamaCare’s collapsing. UnitedHealth announced it will abandon most ObamaCare markets. Giant insurers like Aetna and the BlueCross Blue Shield Association are next. They warned last week losses trying to sell ObamaCare plans are “unsustainable” and they’ll either stop selling the plans or significantly raise premiums. Even Hillary Clinton’s campaign admits the cost of ObamaCare is “crushing.” Six years of ObamaCare have taught the nation lessons that Republicans should not ignore. Keep it short: Don’t give us another 2,572-page “comprehensive” health bill that lawmakers vote on without reading. What Congress passes, Congress must live by: Under Obamacare, members of Congress and...