Cigna Not Expanding Obamacare Offerings After All

Cigna Not Expanding Obamacare Offerings After All

Higher premiums, ridiculous deductibles, fewer choices — you gotta love Obamacare.

For health insurance providers, Obamacare continues to eat away at profits and makes difficult, if not impossible, the task of offering reasonably priced insurance plans.

Yet another health insurance behemoth announced plans to scale back their Obamacare offerings. Cigna had planned to expand their exchange offerings, but after crushing the numbers, have decided against doing so.

Reuters reported:

Health insurer Cigna Corp (CI.N) said on Thursday it would not expand its individual Obamacare plans into more states next year, joining an industry pullback from the struggling business.

Cigna, which manages insurance plans for big companies and sells health plans on the government exchanges created under Obamacare, had planned to expand into 10 states from seven.

Cigna’s complaints mirror those of other health insurance companies who’ve chosen to scale back — low enrollment, and a pool of older, sicker consumers make turning a profit and offering competitive rates a difficult undertaking.

“We’re continuing to plan for a loss in the (individual Obamacare) business,” Cigna Chief Executive David Cordani said in a call with analysts, adding that there would still be “some revenue growth.”

Cigna’s commercial medical loss ratio – the amount it spends on medical claims compared to income from premiums – rose slightly to 79.4 percent in the quarter ended Sept. 30.

However, its government medical loss ratio rose to 85.3 percent from 83.6 percent a year earlier.

As we always say when discussing Obamacare, that it’s destroying the American health insurance market is a feature, not a bug.

Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye

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