California Insurance Exchange Starting to Look Pretty Blue as Aetna, Cigna and United Have Announced They are Not Participating

We heard from United earlier in the year that they would be picking and choosing where they would participate and actually the link below has quite a few summaries about the company with quite a few references on many of the subsidiaries they own.  Already they seem to be set with a lot of revenue and profit with the west coast Tri-Care contract where the company sued the DOD to get it.

United Healthcare States They Will Pick and Choose Health Insurance Exchanges Where They Participate, As They Algorithmically Model Where Profitability Will Exist and Allow for the Creation of Additional Analytics

Of course there are others besides Blue Cross and Blue Shield, such as Kaiser Permanente who will be participating but this certainly shows how analytics and use of algorithms to determine exact profits are playing a bigger role with insurance.  It was also announced today what some of the prospective costs will be on some policies and they seem to be all over the chart, again depending on age and if the consumer qualifies for any subsidiaries.  Some with subsidiaries will end up not having to pay anything from coverage. 

All three of the companies who are not participating this year all have a large business focus as well versus selling premiums direct to consumers, and thus so it looks like there may be a lot of “blue” in the California exchanges.  In addition I know all are working hard in the IT area of all of this and some of it may not be 100% complete but may add more later.  States too are facing more competition from private exchanges and there are more of those popping up too, mostly for the employer provided health insurance plans.  BD

One More Insurance Exchange Started by Former Humana Executive–Currently There Are Over 100 Private Exchanges in Place To Compete With State Exchanges

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UnitedHealth, the nation's largest private insurer, Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. are sitting out the first year of Covered California, the state's insurance exchange and a key testing ground nationally for a massive coverage expansion under the federal healthcare law.

Meanwhile, the biggest insurers in the state — Kaiser Permanente, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California — are all expected to participate in the state-run market for individual health coverage.

UnitedHealth, Aetna and Cigna are small players now in California's individual health insurance market. More of their business is focused on large employers, where most Californians receive their health coverage. But the companies signaled a wait-and-see approach on these new government-run marketplaces.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-insure-20130523,0,1895918.story