Health insurance companies lost money selling policies in the individual market again last year, as premiums from healthy people weren’t enough to cover the costs of the sick. The red ink is a big reason why companies such as Aetna Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. left the Affordable Care Act marketplaces in several states this year.
Now, the bill that Senate Republicans hope will repeal Obamacare includes a pile of money to help struggling insurers in those marketplaces, where about 12.2 million Americans got coverage this year. Specifically, it includes $50 billion over the next four years “to fund arrangements with health insurance issuers to address coverage and access disruption and respond to urgent health care needs,” according to the bill text.
That’s more than enough to cover the industry’s Obamacare losses, new data released Friday by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. indicates. Health plans lost between $5.5 billion and $7.5 billion on the individual market in 2016, according to McKinsey’s analysis of regulatory filings.
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