Friday, January 24, 2014

Aetna CEO: We May Have to Pull Out of Obamacare, or Heavily Hike Premiums

 

Via CNBC, an appropriate companion story to Moody's decision to downgrade health insurers' credit outlook to "negative." At least one chief executive within the industry is openly warning markets and consumers that actions -- and math -- have real-world consequences, no matter how hard political actors spin:
 Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC on Wednesday that Obamacare has failed to attract the uninsured, and he offered a scenario in which the insurance company could be forced to pull out of program. The company will be submitting Obamacare rates for 2015 on May 15.
"Are they going to be double-digit [increases] or are we going to get beat up because they're double-digit or are we just going to have to pull out of the program?" Bertolini asked..."Those questions can't be answered until we see the population we have today. And we really don't have a good view on that." He said that so far, Obamacare has just shifted people who were insured in the individual market to the public exchanges where they could get a better deal on a subsidy for coverage. "We see only 11 percent of the population is actually people that were firmly uninsured that are now insured. So [it] didn't really eat into the uninsured population." 

More with video @ Townhall

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