Medica Likely To Exit Obamacare And Leave Iowa With Zero Health Insurers
Medica, the last standing health insurance company in the state of Iowa, will most likely exit the Obamacare exchange in 2018.
This latest exit will leave Iowans on Obamacare with zero options for health insurance.
While Democrats refuse to admit Obamacare has failed or work on a solution, tens of thousands of Iowans will pay the price.
Tens of thousands of Iowans could be left with no health insurance options next year, after the last carrier for most of the state announced Wednesday that it likely would stop selling individual health policies here.
Medica, a Minnesota based health insurer, released a statement suggesting it was close to following two larger carriers in deciding not to sell such policies in Iowa for 2018, due to instability in the market.
“Without swift action by the state or Congress to provide stability to Iowa’s individual insurance market, Medica will not be able to serve the citizens of Iowa in the manner and breadth that we do today. We are examining the potential of limited offerings, but our ability to stay in the Iowa insurance market in any capacity is in question at this point,” the company’s statement said.
Medica’s move comes on the heels of announcements last month that Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield are pulling out of Iowa’s individual health insurance market. Those are the only three choices for individual health insurance in most areas of the state this year.
The pull-outs would not affect Iowans who obtain insurance via an employer or a government program, such as Medicare or Medicaid. But the carriers’ exit could leave more than 70,000 Iowans who buy their own coverage without any options for 2018.
The situation comes as the U.S. House of Representatives wrestles with a bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. Iowa’s insurance commissioner has said there is little he can do unless Congress loosens the reins on state authority over rules insurers have to follow.
Medica is a relatively small carrier, which faced a daunting prospect in Iowa after Aetna and Wellmark announced they would no longer sell individual health insurance plans here. The two large carriers said they’d lost tens of millions of dollars on the policies, largely because they covered too many older Iowans with chronic health problems and not enough young, healthy people. If Medica remains in the market, it could face the prospect of shouldering all of that risk by itself.
The three carriers’ decisions to pull out will affect Iowans who buy individual health insurance either on or off the federal government’s online marketplace. Unless a replacement carrier is found, the change means moderate-income Iowans in most counties would not be able to use Affordable Care Act subsidies to help pay premiums for private insurance. It also means many better-off Iowans who pay their entire premiums without government assistance would lose their individual insurance policies next year.