Health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield has made an announcement that it won’t be participating in the Nebraska Individual market from the next year. The remaining health insurers have not confirmed about their participation as whether they will continue to participate or else they will leave also.
Blue Cross Blue Shield drop outs of Nebraska Individual market!
It is projected that Blue Cross Blue Shield will going to lose around $12 million this year from offering various plans in the state. Therefore the company would definitely need to increase its premium by around 50% from next year. Even when the company previously participated in the Obamacare exchanges, it resulted in losing something around $150 million!
What Democrats and Republicans have to say?
The law’s defenders and Democrats have pointed to this kind of moves as evidence of Republican sabotage of Obamacare; whereas the Republicans have pointed this to results as evidence that law is not working. Pete Ricketts, Nebraska’s Republican governor said the decision from Blue Cross Blue Shield ‘demonstrates the failure of Obamacare and how this system was so poorly designed that even great companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield can not stay in the marketplace. It highlights that Congress needs to act in order to make the health care system sustainable’.
Blaming lack of certainty!
Blue Cross Blue Shield in posting rate requests for North Carolina has blamed lack of certainty over the Obamacare payments. The insurers have blamed various kinds of factors for these sort of decisions which include the uncertainty that has been injected by the Trump administration. Other factors such as the failure of signing up young youth or healthy people in these plans in order to balance out risk pools also resulted in these decisions.
Around 100,000 Nebraskans purchase their health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges that allow most enrolees to even receive tax subsidies so as to pay for their plans. Further, Medica is the other insurer in Nebraska which offers plans on the exchange.
What Geoff Bartsh of Medica has to say?
Geoff Bartsh, vice president for Medica’s individual and family business said, ‘Things are still changing daily’. He further added, ‘We are still looking at changes and will continue to evaluate things. We are still planning to participate in the Nebraska market for 2018. We haven’t made any final decisions on that yet’.
Date: June 5, 2017
Image Source: Image