Barack Obama’s healthcare problems turn critical. Malfunctioning insurance exchanges are undermining president’s signature reforms.

The Financial Times reports:

At the heart of Barack Obama’s vision for US healthcare reform were online marketplaces in which Americans would buy low-cost health coverage from thriving insurers. In Pinal County, Arizona, a semi-rural district outside Phoenix, it has not gone according to plan.

After three big insurers including Aetna said they would abandon so-called Obamacare exchanges next year, Pinal County faces the prospect of becoming the first place where not a single company wants to sell insurance on its exchange.

The limits on supply do cause higher prices.