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Aetna chief executive Mark Bertolini said Wednesday that the Affordable Care Act's exchanges — the marketplaces where consumers can buy individual health coverage under President Barack Obama's signature health-care law  — are in a “death spiral.” Bertolini's remarks at the Wall Street Journal's the Future of Healthcare event came a day after the official end of his company's proposed merger with the health insurer Humana — a divorce that will cost Aetna a $1 billion breakup fee. (Johnson, 2/15)

Bertolini’s doomsday prophesy: More insurers will pull out of the government-run marketplaces in the coming weeks and many areas will have no insurers to provide Affordable Care Act coverage in 2018. “It’s not going to get any better; it’s getting worse,” Bertolini said in an interview at a Wall Street Journal event. But he declined to say whether Aetna would completely pull out of Obamacare markets next year, though he said the population of covered people in the marketplaces has skewed older and sicker than expected. (Demko, 2/15)

Bertolini has been saying for months that the ACA’s markets are deteriorating. In October, he said that rising rates would push healthy people away from Obamacare, leaving insurers with sicker customers, and forcing premiums even higher. The increasing burden of medical costs as fewer and fewer healthy customers enroll are among the conditions that create an insurance death spiral. (Tracer and Greifeld, 2/15)

Another U.S. health insurer is threatening to drop out of Obamacare after posting massive financial losses related to the program, just hours after an insurance CEO said the law’s markets were entering a “death spiral.” Molina Healthcare Inc., one of the few big insurers that’s stuck with the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, said Wednesday that it could pull out of some markets next year after losing $110 million in 2016. Chief Executive Officer J. Mario Molina said he’s going to wait to see what President Donald Trump’s administration does to shore up the program. (Tracer, 2/15)

Obamacare’s health insurance markets are flirting with financial disaster — and that’s before Republicans have had a chance to lay their hands on the law they’ve vowed for seven years to repeal. (Demko, 2/15)