The chief executive of one of the country’s largest online health insurance marketplaces has lashed out at insurers for “throwing Obamacare under the bus.”
Peter Lee, executive director Covered California, made a series of attacks against UnitedHealth Group Inc. and other insurers in an interview with California Healthline this week. Lee told the publication that UnitedHealth seriously miscalculated rates and networks, leading to its loss of $425 million loss in 2015 on individual policies in the US and a likely loss of $500 million in 2016.
“Instead of saying, ‘We screwed up,’ the said, ‘Obamacare is the problem and we may not play anymore,’” Lee told reporters. “It was giving an excuse to Wall Street and throwing the Affordable Care Act under the bus.”
Lee has been a strong supporter of health reform and the ACA since its inception, and has criticized UnitedHealth in the past. The company, which sat out the launch of Obamacare in 2014, entered the exchanges last year and participated in Covered California in the 2016 open enrollment season.
Though Lee welcomed the company at the time, he now admits it is “driving me bonkers,” having “fed this political frenzy that Obamacare doesn’t work.”
“It’s total spin and unanchored in reality,” he said.
The statements come after UnitedHealth went public with their Affordable Care Act woes, including their multi-million dollar losses and the cutting of commission to brokers. It has even said it may not participate in the exchanges in coming years.
During a November conference call, UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley told analysts, “We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself…I think that basically is an industrywide proposition.”
Lee is not the only person to suggest these problems are self-inflicted, however. An Urban Institute report issued last week suggested UnitedHealth’s premiums were substantially higher than its competitors’ in a number of markets across the country. The insurer also offered broader provider networks that tend to attract sicker policyholders who incur greater medical bills.
Though other major insurers have not suffered the same degree of losses as has UnitedHealth, they have joined the carrier in its criticism and hesitancy to continue with the public exchanges.
Anthem Inc. said last week that its exchange enrollment in 14 states was running 30% below expectations, and Aetna Inc. said Monday it lost up to $140 million on individual coverage last year.
