California Exchange Chief Rips UnitedHealth For Obamacare Excuses

NPR reports:

Amid growing questions over the future of Obamacare exchanges, the head of California's marketplace said the nation's largest private health insurer should take responsibility for nearly $1 billion in losses and stop blaming the federal health law.

In a blistering critique, Covered California's executive director, Peter Lee, said UnitedHealth Group Inc. made a series of blunders on rates and networks that led to a $475 million loss in 2015 on individual policies across the country. The company estimates a similar exchange-related loss of $500 million in 2016.

"Instead of saying, 'We screwed up,' they said, 'Obamacare is the problem and we may not play anymore,' " Lee said in an interview with California Healthline. "It was giving an excuse to Wall Street and throwing the Affordable Care Act under the bus."

Lee, a staunch defender of the health law and a former official in the Obama administration, has tangled with UnitedHealth in the past. He knocked the company for sitting out the launch of Obamacare in 2014, then welcomed UnitedHealth into Covered California for 2016.

The ObamaCare blame game.