[quote=livinincali][quote=joec]In CA, I think United Healthcare has the smallest share of customers out of all the exchange insurance companies…
If they left, maybe they lose 1% of customers? It could also be a cost cutting move since they aren’t really playing in the state anyways…
That said, I think Blue Shield made the most in 2014 from a latimes article I read…so some companies were able to make money, of course, Blue Shield and Blue Cross/Anthem are bad IMO.[/quote]
There’s been other defections. Blue Cross left New Mexico this year and they had half of the enrolled population. There’s no longer any PPO plans in the Houston area. There’s less offerings in the Platinum and Gold plans. I think it’s too early to say how things shake out but it wouldn’t surprise me if you end up with one provider/plan choices in some markets, and possibly no provider at all. Or options so limited than they are kinda worthless.
Right now you have the most experienced insurance companies operating in the space, if they leave because they can’t make enough money, then you might be left with no providers or inexperienced providers that fail anyways. It’s certainly the biggest risk for the the law. It’s more of a risk than the republicans winning the white house.[/quote]Yes, livinincali, this happened in OK as well. BCBS (the largest PPO in the state) narrowed their network on the exchange plans to the extent that in many suburban, semi-rural and rural areas, there are no in-network primary care providers at all and the ones that are listed as “in-network” are overburdened. Of course, they don’t mind taking their planholders premiums every month but they have little to nothing to offer them in return in the way of non-emergency services.
Of course, the Healthecare.gov exchange initially offered a few “fly-by-night” carriers (again, with very narrow networks) which are no longer operating and smaller carriers to choose from but those plans weren’t PPOs.
