Not even insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield can make a go of selling ObamaCare plans in a relatively healthy state like Minnesota; it is pulling out of the individual market there:
“Based on current medical claim trends, Blue Cross is projecting a total loss of more than $500 million in the individual [health plan] segment over three years,” BCBSM said in a statement.
The Blues reported a loss of $265 million on insurance operations from individual market plans in 2015. The insurer said claims for medical care far exceeded premium revenue for those plans.
“The individual market remains in transition and we look forward to working toward a more stable path with policy leaders here in Minnesota and at the national level,” the company stated. “Shifts and changes in health plan participation and market segments have contributed to a volatile individual market, where costs and prices have been escalating at unprecedented levels.”
The decision will have far-reaching implications.
Ya think?
This next bit from Governor Mark Dayton is rich:
“This creates a serious and unintended challenge for the individual market: the Minnesotans who seek coverage there tend to have greater, more expensive health care needs than the general population,” said Dayton. “Blue Cross Blue Shield’s decision to leave the individual market is symptomatic of conditions in the national health insurance marketplace.
We warned you. We warned you again and again for years and years, going back to when ObamaCare had yet to be signed into law. We effing told you that the bill’s perverse incentives would cause the “exchanges” to fill up with people too old, poor, and sick to make them financially viable.
They didn’t listen or they didn’t care — or perhaps something more sinister.
This failure isn’t symptomatic of the “national health insurance marketplace.” It’s symptomatic of a health coverage system that was already malfunctioning, then into which ObamaCare threw sand and monkey wrenches.
And the whole thing has ground to such a halt now that Blue Cross Blue Shield — the first and last resort for so many customers in so many states — stood to lose half a billion dollars in just one medium-size state.
Thanks, Obama, for delivering on H.L. Mencken’s line about giving the people what they want, good and hard.
That Means It’s Working™
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