“With Congress limiting the bailouts of insurance companies for two years in a row, business is not looking good for the industry that lobbied for Obamacare. The latest casualty is United Healthcare, which announced that it is withdrawing from most of its 34 Obamacare exchanges next year.
Announcing the decision during a first quarter earnings conference call, UnitedHealthcare CEO Stephen Hemsley said, “The smaller overall market size and shorter-term, higher-risk profile within this market segment continue to suggest we cannot broadly serve it on an effective and sustained basis."
Due to congressional limits on insurance company bailouts, in October the Department of Health and Human Services transferred $362 million to loss-making insurance companies, rather than the $2.9 billion that they requested.
The Health Insurance Association of America, under the leadership of Karen Ignagni, lobbied heavily in favor of the Affordable Care Act. But now the pool of insured is smaller and sicker than they anticipated.”
“If Congress holds its ground during the appropriations process and refuses to bail out the insurance companies for fiscal 2017, it is likely that more of them will withdraw from the exchanges, raising prices for existing customers. Premiums rose in some markets by 20 percent in 2016, leading to more healthy young people dropping out of plans or not enrolling, accelerating the financial imbalance.
Look at UnitedHealthcare as the canary in the coal mine, and expect more withdrawal announcements in the future.” - UnitedHealthcare’s Exit Augurs Badly for Obamacare, economics21.org, 04/19/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.economics21.org/html/unitedhealthcare%E2%80%99s-exit-augurs-badly-obamacare-1765.html
‘UnitedHealth Group, the largest insurance company in the U.S., on Thursday slashed its earnings outlook, citing new problems related to Obamacare, and told investors it may exit the program's exchanges.
"In recent weeks, growth expectations for individual exchange participation have tempered industrywide, co-operatives have failed, and market data has signaled higher risks and more difficulties while our own claims experience has deteriorated," Stephen J. Hemsley, chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group, said in a press release.
The release added that, "UnitedHealthcare has pulled back on its marketing efforts for individual exchange products in 2016. The company is evaluating the viability of the insurance exchange product segment and will determine during the first half of 2016 to what extent it can continue to serve the public exchange markets in 2017."
In a conference call with investors, Hemsley offered a sober assessment of the exchanges' future viability. He said that claims data have been getting worse as time has gone on, and there's no evidence pointing toward improvement.
Asked about whether the company could sustain losses past 2016, he was blunt: "No. We cannot sustain these losses. We can't really subsidize a marketplace that doesn't appear at the moment to be sustaining itself."
The year 2017 is significant for insurers, because that's the year when several programs designed to mitigate risk for insurers through federal backstops go away. The hope was that those programs would act as training wheels for Obamacare in its first few years of implementation, but after that, the insurers were supposed to be able to thrive on their own. UnitedHealth's statement suggests otherwise.’ - Nation's largest insurer may exit Obamacare due to losses, Washington Examiner, 11/19/2015
Link to the entire story appears below:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2576726
“Andrew Slavitt, a former executive at the technology company tasked with “saving” HealthCare.gov and now second in command at the agency overseeing Obamacare, yesterday ran into sharp questions from a House panel about a potential conflict of interest in his new role.
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., pressed Slavitt on his previous job at OptumInsight/QSSI and that company’s continuing involvement with HealthCare.gov.
“How are you able to manage your former employer, and doesn’t this create a conflict of interest?” Griffith asked Slavitt during the new Obamacare official’s testimony before the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Slavitt, the new principal deputy administrator at Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, didn’t go into specifics, but said he had limited contact with his former employer. He assured Griffith and other subcommittee members that he was taking the proper steps to maintain ethical standards and noted that he had signed an ethics pledge.
“As a public servant, I have a very clear set of rules to follow,” Slavitt said.”
“CMS, Slavitt’s new employer, is the federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, including the website HealthCare.gov.
Slavitt joined the Obama administration in June, leaving a job as group vice president at OptumInsight/QSSI to take the No. 2 job at CMS under Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. In 2012, he made the maximum contributions allowed by law to the Obama Victory Fund and Obama for America (now Organizing for Action).”
“Slavitt told lawmakers yesterday that he rid himself of any financial stakes in OptumInsight/QSSI, including stocks and investments.
OptumInsight/QSSI is the sister company of UnitedHealthcare, a health insurance company that offers plans on both the federal and state-run online insurance exchanges. Both companies are subsidiaries of UnitedHealth Group.
QSSI, which had won a contract with CMS to construct Obamacare’s federal data hub, was acquired by OptumInsight in September 2012, weeks before President Obama’s re-election.
The Obamacare agency then brought in the renamed OptumInsight/QSS to “save” HealthCare.gov after its disastrous rollout in October 2013. The company serves as a “senior adviser” on the project.
Typically, those who leave the private sector for posts in the federal government must wait at least one year before engaging in any work involving the previous employer.
Slavitt, however, received an ethics waiver allowing him to resume work immediately on matters involving his former employer. The waiver, granted July 11 by the Department of Health and Human Services, was made public two weeks ago.
At issue for lawmakers is UnitedHealthcare’s ability to gain competitive advantage over other insurance companies because of data available to its sister company, OptumInsight/QSSI, as a result of its work on HealthCare.gov and the federal data hub.” - Lawmaker Challenges Top Obamacare Official’s Ties to HealthCare.gov Contractor, heritage.org, 08/01/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/01/lawmaker-challenges-top-obamacare-officials-ties-to-healthcare-gov-contractor/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonuKzAZKXonjHpfsX56OgvWa%2BylMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4ASMFrI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D
"A second health insurer notified state regulators Tuesday that it will stop selling individual policies in California.
UnitedHealthcare announced it will no longer offer individual insurance plans after the end of the year. It will focus instead on its core business of group plans for large and small employers.
"Our individual business in California has always been relatively small and we currently serve less than 8,000 individual customers across the state," the company said in a statement. "Over the years, it has become more difficult to administer these plans in a cost-effective way for our members in California."
The announcement comes two weeks after Aetna Inc. said it also plans to exit California's individual insurance market. Both insurers avoided participating in the state exchange that is being established as part of the Affordable Care Act." - UnitedHealthcare to stop selling individual plans in Calif, AP/Foxnews.com, 07/02/2013
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/02/unitedhealthcare-to-stop-selling-individual-plans-in-calif/
