UnitedHealth may exit Obamacare individual exchanges

The house of cards is beginning to crumble. It was bound to come to this. The major insurers will drop out and all those wonderful choices Obama bragged about will likely come down to one 60/40 bronze plan....take it or pay the fine. Good luck getting an appointment or any treatment that isn't considered "Health Maintenance" where the doctors receive full compensation.

Obamacare 'paid' enrollment drops to 9.9M

Folks found out pretty quick that Obama Care was rife with....

Narrow networks leave some Obamacare consumers lacking options

Obamacare doctor networks to stay limited in 2015

Keeping Your Doctor Under Obamacare Is No Easy Feat

Narrow networks, limited choices in conjunction with high deductibles and even higher yearly out of pocket costs in addition to the monthly premiums. Little wonder why enrollment is dropping.

 

Wait, you mean they didn't make it mandatory for the insurance companies too?

 

"More than 9 million people are enrolled through the exchanges, which operate in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The majority of the policyholders receive some level of government subsidy to help pay for the plans, based on household income. The government recently estimated that 10 million people would enroll in 2016. "


What a shock ~

My wife and I work our asses off to bad neither of our employeers has health insurance ( she is an independent contractor) . We make to much to get a subsidy but the "plans" unless you want to pay $800 a month or more are a complete joke. Thanks alot....

 

It is every bit as bad as we predicted it would be right on this very forum back when the most transparent congress ever was pushing it through behind closed doors.

I am assuming that United Health is going to continue to offer individual plans off the exchange, though they actually did completely drop out of the non-Medicare individual market in California when the ACA came online. So it appears to be on the exchange where the real problem lies. The exchanges were like the crown jewel of the whole program, but like everything associated with Obama the liar, they are just another disaster.

I'm not sure whether Obama and his team really are as stupid and inept as all the evidence clearly indicates or if they assumed they could hold onto power and simply throw more and more money at the ACA (most probably pillaged from Medicare) to keep it afloat.

 

Things would have been so much better with the Republican plan.....the one we're still waiting for.......7 yrs and counting. I'm sure it will be spectacular.

 

wow if they leave, that might leave many states with only one or two choices, that already cut back hoping some of the sick would spread to the other big companies so they could still participate... in my state, another provider has pulled out of several counties, basically the most poor and most sick, because they were going to have to increase rates double digits for all the other counties they serve... so they decided to just dump the worst counties and stick with the rest and have a small increase...

this is the new way insurance is going to be, companies picking and choosing states and counties within those states... until what, ultimately the poor and middle class there have no choice, I wonder if we'll see people start including health insurance as a decision when deciding to move to another county within a state... I mean if you could literally in some instances, move a mile down the road, and pay less for healthcare, it now might factor into your monthly budgets... crazy...

anthem drops exchanges in multiple counties...

http://www.jsonline.com/business/anthem-to-pull-out-of-health-plan-exchanges-in-milwaukee-racine-and-kenosha-counties-b99605645z1-338100801.html

assurant plans to go out of business...

http://www.jsonline.com/business/assurant-to-exit-health-insurance-business-b99516948z1-306779721.html

less and less choices every single year now... less and less plans every single year now... and its even getting segmented by the city you live within the state!

 

well what I see is a lot of the companies, are dropping the exchanges, but staying in the private insurance market through employers... so basically anyone who doesn't get healthcare from work, is slowly ending up with less and less choices... health insurance used to be a huge reason why people applied at certain companies, seems we might be going back to making that a luxury and status symbol among companies again... because who can afford to use the plans on the exchanges... deductibles in some cases are twice what they are through an employer sponsored plan... and the monthly premiums are minimal... thats why those companies attracted employees before..

 

Obamacare doesn't set any reimbursement rates ?

Obamacare doesn't set any regulations on "networks" ?

Obamacare doesn't regulate in any way what doctors are in what networks ?

EVERYTHING in your post is caused by private enterprise !!!!! Not one of these things is regulated/controled in any way by Obamacare !

But i'm sure you knew that and will be amending your post

 

It's coming apart at the seams......

"The new tally is down from the 10.2 million paying Obamacare customers reported as of late March, and from the 11.7 million people who actually signed up for coverage as of February, when open enrollment in the plans closed."

 

no kidding

though we did get the conservatives individual mandate

I would of much preferred Obama's public option

 

Gee, my company told me that they contributed to the cost of my plan
Which might explain why a company plan has lower cost to you than a non company subsidized plan

Despite that
One person at work dropped the company plan for the gov subsidized covered California plan which costs her less and has better benefits

Btw
From an insurance company point of view
Insuring company employees works out better for them because that pool is lower risk vs previously non insured

 

hey just out of curiosity since I almost never get anyone to respond... which public option do you want for this single payer plan...

1. signup for medicaid as an option, and the government foots the bill...
2. signup for medicaid as an option, and you pay a monthly premium...
3. signup for any insurance plan, and you are given a partial subsidy...
3. signup for any insurance plan, and you are given a full subsidy...

I've seen people throw around terms like public option, and single payer, and when I press them for details, I almost never get any... or the few times I have finally gotten someone to respond, they would say we just put people on medicaid if thats what they want... then when I followup with the question, so that means when they use the doctor, and the doctor is given those low reimbursement rates, and passes the cost along to private insurance owners, we're essentially shifting that cost onto the backs of those with private insurance until they can no longer afford it themselves and eventually pick medicaid as the option?

I mean nobody ever really wants to talk it all the way through and way the final results will be... most won't even acknowledge that medicaid reimbursements are below actual cost of care, and that cost is made up by those with private insurance paying higher costs for the procedures, which ultimately translates into higher premiums and deductibles... so we're already subsidizing government insurance today, and I can only imagine how much more that would be compounded if that was the public option... I don't see any scenario where it could ever be sustained, either government would have to pay "true cost" or private insurance would collapse? do you see it another way?

P.S. and how would the law have to change, if medicaid was the solution, and doctors who now reject medicaid patients because of the low reimbursements, would we now mandate they can't reject medicaid patients and must take the loss? what would that do for struggling inner city practices who are the most desperately needed but they don't get any of the private insurance clients to pass the cost along to? thats why so many have left the inner city after all, how would this not amplify that flight?

 

Obviously the law was a bad law wasn't it.

 

a Medicaid type option, if you do not choose it you get so much to write of your private insurer on your taxes

I would also release most drugs OTC, let people self diagnose and get a dr only if they feel they need a second opinion

asthma, sleeping pills, pain pills, ect...., many of these people know they need and should just be able to by them online

.

 

The funny thing will be when United pulls out in 2017, Obama will say "It was fine until I left office"

 

I understand all that... I'm not disputing it...

what I'm making a point on and exploring is, how long will the current exchange marketplace work, when only sick people are left using it, and they don't have healthy people to subsidize essentially those sick people... thats why in my example in my state of two large insurers leaving the exchanges because they couldn't afford all the sick people without jacking up rates substantially on the healthy, making them switch to other carriers... so one decided just to drop all the sick people and focus on counties with healthy people... thats a dramatic shift in companies who thought they would spread the damage evenly, but now we're finding its not sustainable the way it is today, and they are literally picking and choosing what counties now get insurance and don't... ultimately leaving like I said, the wealthy to be the only ones to afford to use it... or people will now have to start making health insurance costs a factor when considering which counties to live in... because some counties will have jacked up rates since other insurers pulled out of that county to save money... its becoming a spooky and dangerous game that will leave many with higher costs and less choice...

 

Well, don't you know that the GOP had a plan for health care all along? It is called the free market. Which, btw, is their response to any problem that could ever come along. It is so simple, who would have ever thought of it?

 

The idea is for the Government to provide the insurance, spreading the cost over the public in a feces like layer of new taxes and fees. Then the institution of vat tax as well.

 

If you don't know by now what the Republican plan is, you're beyond hope.

Clue: Buy your own damned insurance if and when you want to, and don't let your stupid government lead you by the nose. Pay your own bills, buy your own food without my money, be responsible for yourself.

Now you know.

- - - Updated - - -

Yep. Seems easy enough for those with connecting brain waves.

 

I do not think UnitedHealthCare was a upstanding citizen prior, during or after Obama was in office

"United Health Care: Huge Fines & Scandals" 2006

https://attorneypages.com/hot/united-health-care-huge-fines-scandals.htm

.

 

A public option hopefully across state lines is where all of this is headed, it is unavoidable.
After great expense and time we arrive back at the original that the Republicans fought so hard to have removed.

 

okay so people pick medicaid under your solution...

but you failed to address all the side issues that comes along with that now?

what happens when they encounter doctors and hospitals that won't accept medicaid patients because they have such low reimbursement rates and they don't get enough private insurance people to pass the costs along to, to essentially subsidize the medicaid patients with the mandated low reimbursement rates? will you force the government to pay "true cost" and raise taxes in order to cover that expense as more and more folks select medicaid?

or do you dispute that doctors charge private insurance carriers higher rates to subsidize the loss they take on medicaid patients?

assuming you don't pass a law saying government must pay "true cost" and raise taxes to cover that, what happens when less and less places accept medicaid patients, will you now pass a law mandating them to accept the patients irregardless of it they have enough private insurance patients to pass the costs along to?

assuming you do pass a law saying they are mandated to take them, what happens when many of them already on the verge of collapse in the inner cities across this country, now pushes them over the edge and they are forced to close their practices because they can't run it at a loss? how will you solve this problem when there are even less doctors available in the inner cities to treat people, and they are forced to go to emergency rooms because there is nobody else left? and what happens when more of those hospitals close because they too ran out of private insurance people to milk and pass the cost along to?

this is the deadly storm being warned about with the low reimbursement rates of medicaid... and if thats the option you want to push and have available... it will only be a matter of time before private insurance becomes so expensive, everyone chooses the medicaid options, and the system collapses upon itself because it simply has nobody to make money from anymore since the true cost of that care is no longer being covered for people... so now what do we do?!?!

or do you dispute any of this would ever happen and I'm just making it all up? and it has no basis or examples today with more and more restrictions every year we go?

P.S. I wouldn't mind a change to OTC medicines adding some that are so common we both acknowledge most folks would be more than capable of using them... sure it'll lead to a slight increase in deaths and reactions, but I think it will be minimal to cost savings so I guess that doesn't bother me much... however it will immensely increase the abuse of drugs, so we're going to have other societal issues to deal with since many of them are addictive... so I don't want to minimize the end result either... but I'm okay with responsible people, having a cheaper life, and irresponsible people, well, no law we've ever passed has stopped them to date right...

 

Go back and ask her next year how she likes it.

 

well they essentially already do since private insurance carriers subsidize medicaid patients indirectly since NO political party ever will have the balls to pay true cost for medicaid... and simply mandating low reimbursement rates make it look like a sustainable and wonderful example people love to throw out there as something we should have for all... without factoring in the trillion dollars shifted to private insurance holders either through work or public exchanges...

the real kick in the fact is we're being double taxed essentially now... not only do we subsidize all those medicaid patients through higher premiums to private insurance, we now pay a subsidy to many americans to buy that subsidizing insurance... a tax on a tax basically... thats the real kicker... so we're all paying more to mandate others buy the subsidized insurance that subsidizes medicaid... how messed up is this whole scenario... but yeah, no political party would ever change it, they'd loss office...

 

United Health
2012 share price: $53
Today's share price: $110

EPS: 5.56%

United Health go pound sand ya greedy pigs.