Aetna CEO: ObamaCare in a “Death Spiral”
by Michael Tennant
TheNewAmerican.com
Monday, 20 February 2017
he chief executive officer of health-insurance giant Aetna Inc. has publicly declared ObamaCare to be in a “death spiral” and said he expects a significant exodus of insurers from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges next year.
Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Healthcare event Wednesday, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini (shown) said, “There isn’t enough money in the ACA today as it is structured, even with its fees and taxes, to support the population that needs to be served.” That population consists of the sickest Americans, those with costly chronic conditions. “Our top one percent to five percent of our members … are driving 50 percent of our overall cost structure,” Bertolini claimed.
Since, under ObamaCare, Aetna is forced to cover those individuals at below-market rates, it needs a large pool of healthy plan members to offset the cost. “You know that mathematics education in the United States is working,” said Bertolini, when people can figure out that it’s in their best interest to forgo health insurance, even with the ACA’s individual-mandate penalty and subsidies, because their premiums and deductibles are so high as to make insurance a decidedly losing proposition. The average deductible for individual insurance nationwide is currently $3,600, an increase of 15 percent from last year, he said.
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