The MLR requires that insurance companies selling to small groups and individuals spend 80 percent of premium dollars received on actual health care (not administrative costs or profits) and 85 percent for large group policies.
Many readers responded to the column by noting that the health insurance companies have experienced healthy rises in share prices since passage of the Affordable Care Act, leading some to believe that it was unrealistic, on my part, to predict the demise of the for-profit health insurance industry in America.
Yet, a report issued this week by, of all places, the conservative Galen Institute, reveals that you can't judge the long-term viability of an industry by its current share price. Indeed, the results of the Galen study highlight that the exodus of insurance companies from the health insurance business may be happening far more quickly than I imagined.
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And it looks like this exodus may happening in Connecticut...
Principal Financial Group had already announced late last year that they were leaving the health insurance business, impacting on some 840,000 insured.
Another key player in the business, Cigna, has decided to quit the small business market in states like California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
In Colorado and Michigan, insurance giant Aetna is bailing on both the small business and individual markets.
The list goes on and on and can be reviewed in its entirety in the Galen Institute report.
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I've got Aetna health insurance via my company. Wonder how long I'll have it. It's not the greatest plan but its better than nothing. I'd prefer a Medicare-for-all plan.
If these insurance companies bailout on offering health insurance, will our political leaders be ready to install a single-payer system?
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