The nation’s third-largest health insurance company is the latest to leave the individual policy market in Indiana in another sign of diminishing competition to benefit consumers who purchase policies through a state insurance exchange under the federal health care overhaul.
However, [Deputy Insurance Commissioner Robyn] Crosson, in her letter [announcing the news to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services], said Aetna was leaving the Indiana individual market over a rule in the federal health care overhaul that insurers essentially must dedicate 80 percent of the premiums they collect to medical care. Anything less than 80 percent would be paid as rebates to policyholders the following year.
Crosson said Aetna and four other insurers — Pekin, American Community Mutual, Cigna, and Guardian Life — cited the 80 percent rule, known formally as the medical loss ratio, as their reasons for leaving the individual market in Indiana over the past year.
Leave it to for-profit corporations to decide that profit is more important than helping people. Who could have possibly predicted this?
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