Why Is Aetna Pulling Out of Nice, Profitable Pennsylvania?

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Last night I linked to a letter from Aetna to the Department of Justice explaining what they would do if their merger with Humana wasn’t approved. The answer, basically, was that they’d pull out of a bunch of Obamacare exchanges. As insurance pro Richard Mayhew puts it:

TLDR: Nice exchanges there, be a pity if anything happened.

But Mayhew points out something else. Aetna claims that they’re not really threatening the Obama administration. They’re losing money! If the merger isn’t approved, they really have no choice but to pull back from the exchanges. It’s sad, but what are you gonna do?

And yet—in 2015 they made $13.6 million in the individual market in Pennsylvania. That’s a very healthy 19 percent of premium revenue. But one of the states they’re pulling back from is…Pennsylvania. Nice, profitable, Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania. It’s very peculiar, isn’t it?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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