"The Affordable Care Act is something that Democrats have to be proud of." – Katie McGinty, 1/31/16
In a devastating blow to 31,000 Pennsylvanians, NBC Philadelphia reports that Aetna and subsidiary Coventry/HealthAmerica will exit the state’s ObamaCare exchange in 2017.
Back when she needed millions merely to beat Joe Sestak in a Democrat primary, Shady Katie’s sprint to the left forced her to frequently boast about her love for ObamaCare.
In March, McGinty even ran a TV ad with a sentence we couldn’t have written any better ourselves:
"…McGinty helped implement Obamacare…"
As ObamaCare crumbles – "limiting choice in Pennsylvania," is McGinty still proud about her support for it?
Read more from NBC Philadelphia:
Aetna Pulling Out of Obamacare Next Year Limiting Choice in Pennsylvania
NBC Philadelphia
By Tom Murphy
August 16, 2016
Aetna will abandon Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges next year in more than two-thirds of the counties where it now sells the coverage including those in Pennsylvania, the latest in a string of defections by big insurers that will limit customer choice in many markets.
Dwindling insurer participation is becoming a concern, especially for rural markets, in part because competition is supposed to help control insurance price hikes, and many carriers have already announced plans to seek increases of around 10 percent or more for 2017.
"This is really going to be felt in Southern states and rural areas," said Cynthia Cox, associate director of health reform and private insurance for the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care issues.
Experts say it is too soon to determine how shrinking insurer participation will affect rates beyond next year, but fewer choices generally contribute to higher prices over time.
Aetna, the nation’s third-largest insurer which has operations in Blue Bell, Pa., says it will limit its participation in the exchanges to four states in 2017, down from 15 this year.
The insurer covers more than 40,000 people through Pennsylvania’s insurance exchange, according to filings on the state insurance commission’s website. Aetna had proposed large rate increases for 2017 earlier this year.
The announcement late Monday came several weeks after UnitedHealth and Humana also said they would cut their coverage plans for 2017 and after more than a dozen nonprofit insurance co-ops have shut down in the past couple of years.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated earlier this year that about one in five U.S. counties could be down to one health insurer on their public exchanges for next year, and about 70 percent of those markets will be rural. That was before Aetna announced its changes. Cox said the total may be closer to one in four now.
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