Big insurers like Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare aren’t the only ones why say they’re struggling to make a profit on the public exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act.
Oscar Insurance Corp., a startup created specifically to cater to customers on the Obamacare exchanges, has also seen significant losses, prompting the young company to pull out of two markets next year, Bloomberg reports.
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“The individual market isn’t working as intended and there are weaknesses in the way it’s been set up,” Oscar CEO Mario Schlosser told Bloomberg. “We want to focus on the markets we understand well, we want to focus on the markets where we have our own model in place.”
The company said it’s going to stop offering plans in Dallas, where several large carriers have pulled out and others have asked for big rate increases, and New Jersey, where its network of providers is too broad.
As the list of insurers pulling out of the exchanges grows, consumers will face fewer choices at open enrollment, along with rising premiums. An Avalere Health analysis issued last week estimated that more than half of exchanges will have two or fewer insurers in 2017, and more than a third will have only one.
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Aetna’s announcement last week that it would be pulling out of a number of exchanges left Pima County, Ariz. as the first place in the country that may have zero providers on the exchanges next year. That would leave residents there who need to purchase an individual policy ineligible for the subsidies under current law.
