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People joked for a while about how insurers were pulling out of Obamacare markets so fast we might end up with areas in which there were no insurers at all.  It’s no joke anymore: with Aetna’s massive withdrawal yesterday from the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Pinal County, Arizona, the third most populated county in that…

Barack Obama’s signature health-care law is struggling for one overriding reason: Selling mispriced insurance is a precarious business model. Aetna Inc. dealt the Affordable Care Act a severe setback by announcing Monday it would drastically reduce its participation in its insurance exchanges. Its reason: The company was attracting much sicker patients than expected. Indeed, all…

So much for choice. In many parts of the country, Obamacare customers will be down to one insurer when they go to sign up for coverage next year on the public exchanges. A central tenet of the federal health law was to offer a range of affordable health plans through competition among private insurers. But…

Tennessee’s insurance regulator approved hefty rate increases for the three carriers on the Obamacare exchange in an attempt to stabilize the already-limited number of insurers in the state. The rate approvals, while a tough decision, were necessary to ensure that consumers around the state had options when open enrollment begins in November, said Julie Mix McPeak,…

All but the most hardened partisans understand that the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges are in serious trouble. In 2010, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that 21 million people would have exchange-based coverage in 2016; the real number was about 12 million. As insurers head for the exits, the gap between initial hype and final reality…

When Aetna decided last week to drop 70% of its health plans in the Affordable Care Act markets, CEO Mark Bertolini publicly blamed the exits on the poor risk pool, as well as “the current inadequate risk-adjustment mechanism.” The federal government’s decision to block Aetna’s acquisition of Humana also factored heavily into Aetna’s exchange exodus,…

The Obama administration is moving to end duplicate coverage for tens of thousands of people who are enrolled in Medicaid and simultaneously receiving federal subsidies to help pay for private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. In the last few days, consumers around the country have received letters warning, in big black type: “People…

An Arizona county is poised to become an Obamacare ghost town because no insurer wants to sell exchange plans there. Aetna’s recent announcement that it would exit most of the states where it offers Obamacare plans leaves residents of Pinal County, Arizona, without any options to get subsidized health coverage next year, unless regulators scramble…

Some of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces are in turmoil as the fourth open enrollment season approaches this fall, but what’s ahead for consumers very much depends on where they live. Competition on these exchanges will be diminished next year when three of the nation’s largest health insurers — Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Humana —…

Health insurance companies are bailing and co-ops are failing as Obamacare barrels down the road to collapse. Grace-Marie Turner, president of the free-market Galen Institute, said Aetna’s decision is surprising because the company’s leadership has been so supportive of the Affordable Care Act. But she said the firm, like others, has found it difficult to stay…