“Exiting the exchange market would likely indicate that the entire marketplace experiment has failed, thus no longer a threat to cannibalize commercial group business, and yield higher” earnings per share, he said in a note late Thursday.
Representatives for Aetna and Anthem declined to comment, referring to comments made as recently as last week that they were willing to be patient. Aetna had said on Nov. 10 that it was working to break even in the exchanges next year, and on Friday said its individual business is performing “in line with its projections” through the end of October.
‘Too Early’
“It’s way too early to call it quits on the and on the exchanges,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said on an Oct. 29 conference call held to discuss third-quarter financial results. “We view it still as a big opportunity.”
Anthem echoed those remarks. In late October, Chief Financial Officer Wayne DeVeydt said the company is willing to wait a few years for the Obamacare exchange business to improve.
“We are going to need to be patient until this works itself out, which we hope will be by 2017 and 2018,” DeVeydt said. “What we thought would be a tailwind going into 2016 is probably going to be a headwind.”
The Obama administration said UnitedHealth’s announcement isn’t a sign of larger problems.
Sign-Ups
“The reality is we continue to see more people signing up for health insurance and more issuers entering the marketplaces,” Ben Wakana, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an e-mail. “Today’s statement by one issuer is not indicative of the marketplace’s strength and viability.”
America’s Health Insurance Plans, which lobbies on behalf of the industry, said Thursday that the U.S. needs to do more to improve the marketplaces. UnitedHealth isn’t an AHIP member.