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Aetna became the latest health insurer to cast doubt upon its future in the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges after it called off a planned expansion Tuesday and suggested it could abandon that market completely. A departure by Aetna, the nations' third-largest insurer, could further reduce the number of choices for customers and eventually push insurance prices higher. Competition by insurers is a key feature of the exchanges, designed to keep a lid on prices, but several insurers are abandoning them because they are losing enormous amounts of money. (Murphy, 8/2)

Aetna said it would re-evaluate its participation in the 15 state exchanges where it currently sells plans, and cancel a planned expansion into more. The moves come in the wake of recent confirmations by UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Humana Inc. that they would pull back sharply from the ACA’s exchanges amid deepening losses, and a disclosure by Anthem Inc. that it now expects losses on its ACA business in 2016. “We will look at the financial performance of the business over time, its trajectory and volatility” and the review will be market-by-market, said Aetna Chief Executive Mark T. Bertolini. (Wilde Mathews, 8/2)

Bertolini said big changes are needed to make the exchanges viable. Risk adjustment, a mechanism that transfers funds from insurers with healthier clients to those with sick ones, “doesn’t work,” he said. Rather than transferring money among insurers, the law should be changed to subsidize insurers with government funds, Bertolini said. “It needs to be a non-zero sum pool in order to fix it,” Bertolini said. Right now, insurers “that are less worse off pay for those that are worse worse off.” (Tracer, 8/2)

Chief Executive Mark Bertolini said he is pleased with Aetna's overall results, but following an updated 2016 projection of individual products and "significant structural challenges" facing the Affordable Care Act exchanges, he said Aetna will abandon plans to expand public exchange plan offerings in 2017. Bertolini told investor analysts on a conference call that Aetna expects a loss of more than $300 million in Affordable Care Act business this year. Aetna had previously said it was a break-even operation. (Singer, 8/2)

The grim prediction from Aetna is the latest blow to the Obama administration as it looks to stabilize the three-year-old marketplace. Federal health officials had previously touted Aetna's commitment to the marketplace last November, after UnitedHealthGroup announced it planned to exit the exchanges entirely. (Ferris, 8/2)

Aetna, the third-largest health insurer in the US, said Tuesday that it was reconsidering its offerings on the state exchanges that make up the backbone of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law more commonly known as Obamacare. ...In a conference call following the company's earnings announcement, CEO Mark Bertolini said the firm had halted its plans to expand into New Jersey and Indiana in 2017 and was looking into the reasons for losses in the exchanges it was already participating in. (Bryan, 8/2)

Exchanges have lately received one piece of bad news after another. Most of Obamacare’s co-op insurers have failed, and some areas are requesting double-digit increases in 2017. Aetna is only the latest insurer to express hesitation about whether it will continue to offer insurance plans through the marketplaces. (Owens, 8/2)

Aetna and Humana will sell certain Medicare Advantage assets to Molina Healthcare as the insurers prepare to defend their merger against a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit. In addition, Aetna said its worsening performance on public exchanges has forced the company to rethink its 2017 expansion plans and evaluate all of its individual plans in 15 states where it currently sells Obamacare, company chairman Mark Bertolini said Tuesday. Humana has already said it is pulling off most ACA exchanges for next year. (Japsen, 8/2)

Aetna also has partnered with Humana to sell some Medicare Advantage plans to rival Molina Healthcare in an effort to clear anti-trust obstacles to the proposed $37 billion merger between Aetna and Humana, the companies announced Tuesday. (Barkholz, 8/2)

Aetna and Humana said Tuesday they have an agreement to sell Medicare Advantage business covering 290,000 people to rival insurer Molina if their planned merger is allowed to be completed. But that may not be enough to win over the Justice Department, which has sued to block the merger. Aetna also said it is halting 2017 plans to expand participation on public exchanges and is reviewing all of its current participation on Affordable Care Act exchanges. (Radelat, 8/2)