UnitedHealth Group, Inc., is leaving more and more state Obamacare exchanges, announcing recently that it will also pull out of the health care marketplaces in Kentucky and Iowa, bringing to 26 the number of states the health insurer is quitting next year.
UnitedHealth Group has the size, the money and the power to decide whether they will play the health care game or not, and they can write the rules. UHG, the nation’s largest insurer, can say to the state exchanges, because we are operating without government bailout money and risk adjustment funds, and because we are losing millions, we’re now bailing out on you. UHG doesn’t need the exchanges to survive, but the exchanges do need insurance companies, so the insurers have control. Therefore, this could be the beginning of the end for the Obamacare exchanges.
UnitedHealth Group’s CEO said last week that the company would only offer plans for the Affordable Care Act in a “handful of states” for 2017, but has not listed those states yet, Bloomberg also reported. UHG will continue to offer small-business plans off the exchange in Kentucky and Iowa.
Some say government will be in control in a nationalized health care system, but thus far, the American version of socialized medicine has put larger health plans in charge. These plans have the power to say to Obamacare architects, “If you want exchanges to be a success, you’ll need to do something different to keep us in the game.”
Insurance company bailouts have been prohibited since December 2014, yet insurers were given $12 billion in relief through a delay of the health insurer tax. Since then, however, insurance companies are losing out monetarily because state exchanges are not working as designed—having young, healthy enrollees pay for older, sicker patients which Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom predicted.
UnitedHealth Group may have many reasons for exiting the exchanges, certainly for the financial losses, but the move may also be a way of communicating its disagreement with the lack of money for bailouts.
This is how Obamacare exchanges could end. Healthcare would dissolve because, eventually, there will be insufficient funding. A piece of every premium dollar from Obamacare enrollees goes toward exchange operations, so once those premiums become less and less as insurance companies and, therefore, patients exit there will be nothing left to pay the bills.
It is our hope at Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom that even more insurers will “bail out” of the state exchanges so the exchange system collapses. States would then decide how to help their own people which should be the case. It’s our hope that UnitedHealth Group is leading this charge the beginning of the exodus away from Obamacare exchanges and the implosion of this government super structure.
Twila Brase is president and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedoma Minnesota-based national organization dedicated to preserving patient centered health care and protecting patient and privacy rights. Celebrating its 20th year, CCHF exists to protect health care choices and patient privacy. Brase, a registered nurse, has been called one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Health Care” and one of “Minnesota’s 100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders.”
Date: April 28, 2016