Anthem's membership in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces will decline by 70% in 2018, executives told investors Wednesday on the insurer's third-quarter earnings call. About 1.4 million people had ACA-compliant plans with Anthem as of Sept. 30, 900,000 of whom bought coverage on the exchanges.
Between the lines: Anthem, which posted a $747 million third-quarter profit, has announced its ACA exit strategy in many states throughout the year. A 70% drop in ACA customers is steep, and means a lot of people will have to pick a new plan. Anthem is mostly staying in regions where it is the monopoly ACA insurer, which is more likely to ensure profitability.
Now the Senate has two competing plans to fund the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing subsidies — which could mean it won't be able to pass either one. Senate Finance chair Orrin Hatch and House Ways and Means chair Kevin Brady outlined a new proposal yesterday as an alternative to the bipartisan ACA bill led by Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray.
The details: It's hard to call these competing ACA stabilization bills. Although they'd both fund cost-sharing subsidies for two years, Hatch-Brady would also waive the law's individual mandate for five years — effectively replacing one source of rising premiums with another.
Oscar Health Insurance is planning to keep branching out beyond the Affordable Care Act's individual markets. The startup insurance company has a job posting for an actuary who "will support the launch of our Medicare Advantage business."
Devoted Health, a new insurance company that will only sell Medicare Advantage plans, just raised $62 million, according to a financial filing. The startup, which raised another $7 million in a seed round, will start selling Medicare Advantage plans in 2019.
Big names are backing Devoted Health: former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist are on the board. Todd and Ed Park, brothers who both worked at electronic health record company Athenahealth, are the co-founders and recruited Venrock's Bob Kocher to be the company's chief medical officer.
Get smart: Medicare Advantage is where the big money is. The Affordable Care Act marketplaces grab a lot of headlines, but they are a blip on the radar when compared with the massive amount of dollars tied up in private Medicare plans.
