Aetna Inc. is leaving Virginia’s Obamacare market after suffering huge looses in the single market business.
The company said on Wednesday that it will not participate in the state’s individual market, either on the Obamacare exchange or outside of it in 2018.
Aetna could still lose upto $200 million in its individual market products this year. That is on the top of the nearly $700 billion the company has lost in the three years after the exchanges opened in 2014.
CEO Mark Bertolini seeks to limit his insurer’s risks from the beleaguered health law.
“We will not offer on- or off-exchange individual plans in Virginia,” Aetna said in an emailed statement, citing $200 million or more in losses the company anticipates this year on individual products. The insurer also cited “growing uncertainty in the marketplace” for the plans.
“We will communicate decisions on our remaining states as appropriate,” Aetna said in the email.
Innovation Health, which Aetna formed through a joint venture with Washington D.C. insurer Inova in 2012, will also leave the Virginia market.
In addition UnitedHealth Group Inc., that has already stopped selling ACA health plans, announced last month that it was pulling out of Virginia.
A senior adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that funds the health care research and grants, Katherine Hempstead said, Aetna’s exit will not leave Virginia residents without any insurers, but the 27 counties could have only one choice for 2018.
Insurers face huge loss due to participating in the Affordable Care Act and a Republican Congress that has threatened to repeal or undermine the law.
The Trump’s administration said that it may withhold some subsidies that will help low income people to use health plans. This could cause insurers to leave or raise rates.
The company stated that its per-person losses from Obamacare plans are worsening. Going into this year, it exited most states where it had been participating in Obamacare.
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