WPS subsidiary Arise leaving health insurance exchange
The wholly owned subsidiary of
"The marketplace was telling us that these are not profitable products,"
"We could not continue to remain in an unstable market without creating problems for our other customers so we decided that we would no longer sell products for the 2017 benefit year that were unprofitable," Foley said.
Open enrollment for next year opens
Healthinsurance.org reports most of the 224,208 individual market plans in
Humana, Ambetter and UnitedHealthcare have said they are leaving the individual health plan market in
Health insurers that have left
In
Foley said an issue faced by insurers in the exchanges is that there were more people with illnesses signing up for coverage and using health insurance than healthy individuals simply signing up for plans. It's important to have a balance to control costs, she said.
WPS said a majority of the individuals on the Arise plan purchased through the exchange were eligible for a government subsidy to offset premium costs.
Foley said many exchange participants signed up for "silver level" plans, the most widely used, which cover about 70 percent of an enrollee's medical costs.
WPS sent letters Friday to those affected by the company's decision and will contact customers to help them with problems.
Those affected will have health insurance coverage through
Foley said the government also has safeguards in place, which would automatically enroll those affected into similar-tier plans temporarily so that their health coverage would continue until they enrolled in another plan.
In January, WPS announced it was partnering with
The plan will be participating in
Foley said in this case,
WPS and Arise will continue to offer "ACA-compliant bronze level and catastrophic health plans" but outside the exchange in 2017 and only in select counties.
WPS plans will be available in
Arise plans will be available in
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