California's biggest health insurers are among a select few to show a profit selling Obamacare policies.This is what Barack Obama calls a better health insurance system.
In the first year of the massive coverage expansion, California's three largest health insurers bucked the national trend of heavy losses and accounted for half of the gains reported under the Affordable Care Act in 2014.
Blue Shield of California led the country with $107 million in profit on Obamacare policies sold to individuals. Kaiser Permanente was second with $66 million, and Anthem Blue Cross ranked seventh nationally with a $9-million surplus in the Covered California exchange.
Nationwide, insurers reported just $362 million in total profit under a federal rate-stabilization program, while most insurers recorded big losses — a total of $2.87 billion.
Critics have seized on the industry losses as a sign that the health law is failing. Those concerns were amplified when the nation's largest insurer, UnitedHealth, warned that it may quit selling Obamacare policies because the business was so unprofitable.
Wednesday, December 09, 2015
Health Insurers Lose Big Under ObamaCare
The L.A. Times reports: