With Humana’s decision to exit the Obamacare exchange market in the year 2018, the health insurers and the regulators are all alarmed. However, the Trump administration issued new rules to try and stabilize these drastic changes.
Aetna CEO, Mark Bertolini, said that there wasn’t enough money in the ACA even with its fees and taxes to support the population that needed to be served and we would see a lot more withdrawals. He added that without government funding, the exchange market won’t work and it is in a death spiral.
The health department also released a set of rules for 2018, to prevent people from signing up for coverage and then dropping it after incurring high medical bills. Their decision to withdraw is hitting hard in Tennessee. The firm is the only insurer that covers over three of the state’s largest metropolitan communities.
Humana’s decision to withdraw from the individual market is hitting hard in Tennessee, where the firm is currently the only insurer to cover three of the state’s largest metropolitan communities.
State’s health insurance officials are scrambling to deal with the fallout. Julie Mix McPeak, the state’s insurance commissioner said that they are looking to continue conversations with Humana about the specific unique circumstances having no option for the 40,000 Tennesseans if they withdraw from the Knoxville area, but also trying to talk to other insurers to see if they are willing to expand coverage to ensure they don’t have uncovered areas.
The federal health officials said that they intend to release a revised proposed timeline for the plan rates to be certified so that would give the insurers more time to implement changes for rules about Obamacare plans.