Obamacare collapse continues as major insurer Aetna dumps ALL exchanges, leaving millions without options
05/11/2017 / By JD Heyes
Following lie after lie, the government-run healthcare fiasco known as Obamacare continues to unravel and collapse, leaving tens of millions of Americans paying obscene prices for unusable ‘coverage’ – that is, when they can get it at all.
One of the biggest lies of all used by former President Obama and the Democratic Party is that the Affordable Care Act would provide a myriad of choices of insurance coverage, an alleged aspect of the plan that would lead to more competition and lower prices.
The exact opposite has happened, in fact, as prices for monthly premiums and out-of-pocket deductibles have literally become unaffordable for many.
And now, as major insurer Aetna announces it will become the latest insurer to leave the Obamacare exchanges, millions of Americans will be left with no choice at all. (RELATED: Collapse: Anthem announces it will exit Obamacare markets this year, leaving millions of Americans with no provider choice)
As reported by Bloomberg Politics:
While the move is likely to attract outsize political attention, the decision affects just Delaware and Nebraska. The Hartford, Connecticut-based insurer already said last year it would pull out of 11 states, and in the last month announced plans to exit Iowa and Virginia.
“We will not offer on- or off-exchange individual plans in Delaware or Nebraska for 2018, and at this time have completely exited the exchanges,” Aetna said in a statement Wednesday.
Bloomberg’s attempt to downplay the scope if Aetna’s decision undermines the wider, bigger, and more important issue that the insurer had already pulled out of most of its Obamacare markets, as reported by Reuters:
Aetna had already said it would exit the individual commercial market in Virginia and Iowa, after pulling out of several other states last year.
Townhall.com reported in April 2016 that insurers were pulling out of the exchanges “in droves,” severely hampering consumers’ insurance choices. The site referenced a study by the Heritage Foundation that Obamacare overall had dramatically limited consumer choice, finding that 45 percent of all states had fewer health insurance options than were being offered just one year before – 2015. And of the 45 insurer exits from the exchanges, 31 were “voluntary exits, with 21 of those completely abandoning all ACA exchanges – because they were hemorrhaging money.
Worse, the insurers that have remained in the exchanges have had to dramatically boost premiums in order to remain profitable – another lie regarding Obamacare told to us by the former president and Democrats, who pledged that rates would fall by an average of $2,500 per year.
The departure of Aetna from its remaining Obamacare exchanges is just the latest reason why Congress should fully repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with free market solutions that allow patients, insurers and medical providers the right to determine prices. The only way the U.S. healthcare system will ever be affordable again – for insurance companies, for providers and for consumers – is to get the government completely out of ‘managing’ our healthcare system altogether.
Political sycophant supporters of Barack Obama and Democrats, for some reason, are refusing to face reality and acknowledge the obvious – Obamacare is an abject failure, it is destroying family incomes, it is falling far short of providing the “universal” coverage it was supposed to provide, and it has created havoc and uncertainty throughout the healthcare delivery system. (RELATED: Obamacare will collapse under the weight of rising premiums)
That’s what is so far preventing Congress from pulling the plug on this grotesque, destructive law and letting Americans and the market decide what is best for their needs.
While the government certainly has an interest in the cost of health care as it pertains to Medicare, Medicaid and the VA, in a truly free market system it could use its massive purchasing power to negotiate for better rates – much like retail giant Walmart does when deciding what product lines to carry and from which suppliers. But that’s all government should be – just a customer among tens of millions of individual customers and purchasing groups who, themselves, could negotiate locally for better prices.
Obamacare is an abject failure. The signs are everywhere. It’s not going to get any better.
Repealing it, and returning to the people the right to decide coverage and care options for themselves, should not be as difficult as it has been.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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