For 80 years, from our home base in Pittsburgh, Highmark has provided high quality, affordable health care coverage as part of our mission to serve our communities. We are proud that we have grown slowly over time and now arethe leading health care insurer in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware while still maintaining our community focus and commitment to individual care.
It is this mission and focus that prompted us to participate in the new marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. And it is because of our commitment to our customers that Highmark filed litigation to recover money that the federal government owes us under the law.
Our decision is not based on politics: We agreed to enter into the ACA marketplaces in good faith and with repeated assurances from the government that it would fulfill its legal obligations. But despite our repeated requests, the government has, to date, failed to pay Highmark the full amounts due. We are simply calling on the government to follow through on the commitments it made to share the costs of covering and treating previously uninsured Americans, as the law was designed to do.
Ensuring that the ACA market is viable for the future is a goal of Highmark and a responsibility that should be shared by the entire healthcare community. We cannot regress and put the health of 12.7 million people currently enrolled in health care exchanges at risk. It is essential we get the right premium rates, care delivery networks and care management programs in place to stabilize the ACA markets so that they can be self sufficient.
But even as the litigation is ongoing, our commitment to our 5.2 million customers and the communities where they live is strong. The future of health care is right here in Pittsburgh, and as an industry leader, Highmark is taking definitive steps to make sure it stays that way. The goal is to build the model of the future, focused less on bricks and mortar, and more on care management and a better consumer experience that empowers individuals to take responsibility for their own health.
Despite ACA related challenges, Highmark continues to be a financially strong organization. Just recently, Standard & Poor’s affirmed our A rating and gave us a stable outlook based on our demonstrated ability to maintain solvency while turning around our Affordable Care Act book of business and continuing to strengthen Allegheny Health Network. We are confident that the steps we have taken on both of these fronts will improve our business and ensure that we continue to provide high quality, low cost health care to the communities we serve.
Date: May 23, 2016