Aetna Pulling Out Of Many Obamacare Exchanges: What Does It Mean For You?

Aetna, one of the largest health insurers in America, announced that it will no longer be selling health insurance under Obamacare in all but four states, following losses of hundreds of millions of dollars since President Obama's signature healthcare law passed.

The company will only sell on Obamacare exchanges in Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska and Virginia, down from the 15 states where it had previously been selling.

So what does this mean if you have health insurance under Aetna?

If you have Aetna health insurance through your work or you bought it yourself on a private exchange, you aren't affected by the announcement, and nothing will change.

This change only affects people who:

• have Aetna health coverage,
• purchased it through Obamacare
• and don't live in Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska or Virginia.

If you meet those three criteria, you will still have coverage through 2016 and up until the 2017 open enrollment period, the Aetna statement said. From now until then, Aetna will "communicate options to impacted members" before the deadline and "provide resources to assist them in transitioning to other plans as appropriate."

If you think you will be impacted, you can contact Aetna for more information.

So why is Aetna pulling out of these exchanges?

A company statement said too many of its patients enrolled under Obamacare were "in need of high-cost care," and it did not have enough healthy customers to offset those costs.

"As a strong supporter of public exchanges as a means to meet the needs of the uninsured, we regret having to make this decision," Aetna CEO Marc Bertolini said in a company statement.

UnitedHealthcare — the largest health insurance provider in America — and other major health companies have similarly scaled back their participation in the Affordable Care Act.

"Aetna's decision to alter its Marketplace participation does not change the fundamental fact that the Health Insurance Marketplace will continue to bring quality coverage to millions of Americans next year and every year after that," ACA marketplace CEO Kevin Counihan said in a statement.

Read the full Aetna statement here.

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