Blue Cross Blue Shield in Minnesota announced that it was
pulling out of that state's individual market after suffering staggering losses
as a result of ObamaCare. Blue Cross affiliates across the country are
suffering similar losses. (AP)
6:00 AM ET
Health Reform: The health care law President Obama signed
six years ago was supposed to fix the individual insurance market with
enlightened rules and regulations. Instead, ObamaCare is destroying this
market. Just look at what's happening to Blue Cross Blue Shield.
If any insurer could cope with ObamaCare, it should have
been Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Blue Cross companies came into the ObamaCare exchanges with
decades of experience writing individual policies. Most of them are
non-profits, which gives them an automatic leg up on the competition. And their
plans captured the largest share of the exchange markets across the country.
But as with everything else about ObamaCare, it hasn't work
out that way.
Last week Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota made a
stunning announcement that it was pulling out of the state's individual
insurance market altogether after losing $500 million.
<http://www.investors.com/politics/policy-analysis/minnesota-shows-everything-wrong-with-obamacare/>,
It might not be the last of the Blues to abandon ObamaCare.
Across the country Blue Cross affiliates are losing staggering amounts of money
thanks to the law, and are putting in for premium hikes that would have been
unimaginable before ObamaCare.
For example, Health Care Services Corp. -- which owns Blue
Cross affiliates in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas -- lost
$1.5 billion on its ObamaCare-compliant plans last year.
As a result, it's requesting a nearly 60% rate hike in Texas,
and almost 50% in Oklahoma. HCSC pulled out of the New Mexico exchange last
year after the state turned down its 50%-plus rate increase.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, meanwhile, lost about
$300 million in ObamaCare's first two years and is likely to lose another $100
million this year. It wants a 62% increase in premiums, on top of the 36% it
got last year.
Highmark Group, which owns Blue Cross affiliates in
Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia, lost $266 million in just the first
nine months of 2015.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina lost $280 million
on ObamaCare in 2015. Earlier this year, CEO Brad Wilson talked about possibly
pulling out of ObamaCare, saying that "we can't offer something for sale
in this marketplace that we know every time it's purchased we're losing
money."
Arizona's Blue Cross wants a 65% rate hike after reporting
$185 million in losses in ObamaCare's first two years.
In Alabama, Blue Cross figures it lost $135 million last
year, and $64 million in Nebraska.
Then there's the departure of UnitedHealth Group from most
of its ObamaCare markets, Humana's exit from several, and the demise of 13 of
the 23 ObamaCare-created insurance co-ops, and double-digit rate requests
across the country.
Cynthia Cox of the Kaiser Family Foundation admitted to NPR
that ObamaCare isn't exactly working out as intended. "The hope was that
these markets would encourage exchange competition and (get) more insurers to
come in.
"I don't know if we're at a point where it's completely
worrisome," she went on, "but I think it does raise some red flags in
pointing out that insurance companies need to be able to make a profit or at
least cover their costs."
We are well beyond the point where it's
"worrisome." Obama and his fellow Democrats tried to refashion the
insurance market to their liking, and failed.
The question now isn't whether ObamaCare exchanges will
somehow stabilize someday, but what comes next.
1 comment:
Next comes the government taking over insurance as the private sector pulls out.
Post a Comment