Aetna has officially ditched all of its Obamacare business
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Aetna, one of the major five public health insurers in the US, announced it will remove its products from the Obamacare exchanges in Nebraska and Delaware.
The moves mean Aetna has completely removed itself from every Obamacare exchange for now.
The move comes after Aetna announced it was pulling out of Iowa and Virginia over the past few weeks, citing losses sustained in the Affordable Care Act's individual insurance exchanges.
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A statement from Aetna spokesperson TJ Crawford said:
"Our individual Commercial products lost nearly $700 million between 2014 and 2016, and are projected to lose more than $200 million in 2017 despite a significant reduction in membership. Those losses are the result of marketplace structural issues that have led to co-op failures and carrier exits, and subsequent risk pool deterioration. We will not offer on- or off-exchange individual plans in Delaware or Nebraska for 2018, and at this time have completely exited the exchanges."
Reports indicated that Nevada officials convinced Aetna to enter the state's exchange for 2018, but Aetna has not made that official and Crawford told Business Insider that the insurer had "no comment on a potential Nevada presence at this time."
Aetna announced in August 2016 that it was removing its offerings from roughly 70% of the exchanges in which the company participated. That came after Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told the Department of Justice that unrealized savings from a proposed merger with rival Humana would force the insurer to pull out of the market. The merger was blocked.
The move also comes at a fraught political moment for President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.
Political uncertainty surrounding funding for a key provision of the ACA and the looming possible repeal of the law after the passage of the American Health Care Act in the House have caused insurers to reconsider their offerings for the 2018 plan year.
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