Obamacare Exodus Accelerates: After Georgia And Arkansas, Biggest Health Insurer Exits Michigan And Oklahoma

Monday, April 18, 2016
By Paul Martin

by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
04/18/2016

Two weeks ago we reported that after its November warning that it may exit certain Obamacare markets as a result of substantial losses, the largest U.S. health insurer UnitedHealth, did just that when it announced it would no longer sell plans for next year in Georgia and Arkansas.

Then over the weekend, UnitedHealth also added Michigan to the list of states whose Obamacare market it would no longer service. As Bloomberg reported, “the insurer won’t sell policies through Michigan’s ACA exchange for next year, according to Andrea Miller, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Georgia and Arkansas said last week that UnitedHealth will quit their exchanges for 2017.”

And then, moments ago in the latest hit to Obamacare, United added Oklahoma as the 4th state to the growing list of Obamacare markets it refuses to service.

What will the consequences of this exodus be?

According to Bloomberg, “while Michigan and Arkansas can probably weather UnitedHealth’s move, some consumers in Georgia and Oklahoma may feel a lack of choices, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of UnitedHealth’s offerings across the U.S.”

Michigan should be able to endure the loss of United because the insurer only participates in seven of the state’s 83 counties, and it’s not among the cheapest in any of those counties, according to the Kaiser analysis. United also wasn’t offering cheap plans in Arkansas. In Georgia, however, the loss of UnitedHealth will cut the number of insurers to just one or two in about half of the state’s counties, though those counties account for just 11 percent of the state’s population. The insurer offered one of the cheapest plans in 34 of the state’s 159 counties.

Worse, on the current trend, UnitedHealth will likely announce the exit of more states in the coming days.

The Rest…HERE

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