Last year, you may recall that one of the nation's largest insurers, Aetna, announced it had suffered major losses under the failing Affordable Care Act. As a result, it was pulling out of many ACA exchanges. The company said it intended to soldier on in just four states - Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, and Virginia.
Back then, Aetna claimed losses of almost $450 million. A few weeks ago, they announced that number has risen to $700 million since 2014, and they trimmed Iowa and Virginia from the list. They promised they'd "continue to evaluate" future plans for Delaware and Nebraska.
It appears they've done just that. They expect to lose another $200 million through the remainder of 2017, for a total of almost $1 Billion. They've decided that enough is enough, and the dumpster fire known as ObamaCare has completely lost the insurer.
"Looking beyond 2017, we continue to evaluate our footprint with a view towards significantly reducing our exposure to individual commercial products in 2018," said Shawn Guertin, Aetna's chief financial officer. "We have already disclosed our planned 2018 exit from one of our 2017 state-based exchanges and intend to communicate other 2018 footprint decisions when appropriate."
A week later, the company is now announcing the exit of the last two states it was participating in.
"We will not offer on- or off-exchange individual plans in Delaware or Nebraska for 2018, and at this time have completely exited the exchanges," said T.J. Crawford, a spokesman for Aetna.
"Our individual commercial products lost nearly $700 million between 2014 and 2016 and are projected to lose more than $200 million in 2017 despite a significant reduction in membership," said Crawford. "Those losses are the result of marketplace structural issues that have led to co-op failures and carrier exits and subsequent risk-pool deterioration."
...And that's what collapse looks like.
Of course, this is all turning out according to plan. The law was, after all, just a "step on the path to single payer." The exchanges were supposed to fail, insurers were supposed to face their doom, and Hillary was supposed to be there to save us all with an abomination she'd no doubt call Hillarycare.
In fact, the only part that hasn't gone according to plan is the 2016 election. ...And that's why they're so furious about their loss.
All the pieces were in place. Their fingertips had grazed the brass ring.
Then, thanks to their own hubris, it all slipped away.
