Wisconsin: Humana pulling out of individual market in 2017 (6,600 people...but are they even on the exchange?)
Thu, 05/05/2016 - 11:11am
Yesterday I noted that in Humana's Q1 2016 financial report, they indicated that they might be dropping their individual market offerings in some states next year.
Today I discovered that sure enough, they're pulling out of Wisconsin:
Some important caveats:
- Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think Humana is participating on the ACA exchange this year anyway. In other words, I think this is referring to OFF-exchange enrollees only. They weren't part of my 2016 Rate Hike Request list last summer, and I don't see them listed in the official HealthCare.Gov Database.
It's possible that they're operating under a different brand name in the above list, but I don't think Humana usually does that.
- This only impacts 6,639 people (Wisconsin's exchange enrollment should top 200,000, and that doesn't include the off-exchange enrollees)
- This also includes non-ACA compliant policies. While Wisconsin is among the states allowing carriers to keep offering transitional policies through the end of 2017, Humana has decided to pull the plug on those as well.
- This does not have anything to do with the much larger small and large group market, however.
In other words, unless I'm wrong about Humana currently participating on the exchange this move shouldn't actually impact the list of ACA exchange participants at all.
It does, however, have some indirect implications: One fewer competitor for the individual market in the state and so forth.