White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Tuesday that the decision of major health insurer Anthem to leave Ohio’s Obamacare exchange shows America is running out of time to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“We just don’t have time to waste,” Spicer said at the White House. “Obamacare continues to collapse.”
Spicer said a third of all U.S. counties have just one insurance provider under Obamacare, and that individual premiums have jumped by an average of 105 percent from 2013 to 2017.
“And just today, Anthem, the only state-wide insurer left in the state of Ohio, announced it will be pulling out of every county’s Obamacare exchange, leaving 19,000 Ohioans without any options,” he added.
“The American people have been saddled with the bill for Washington’s inability to get this disaster taken care of, and it’s simply not right for them to have to pay it any longer,” Spicer said.
Anthem said it would leave Ohio next year, a move that would leave 20 Ohio counties without any insurer.
The company cited an “increasing lack of overall predictability” as a factor in its decision.
“So, while we wait for new regulations to be released, we’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the number of individual health plans we’ll offer next year,” the company said.
Republicans have warned for the last few years that options for people were drying up under Obamacare. But the GOP plan to partially repeal and replace the law is stuck in the Senate, and it’s not clear senators will be able to pass any bill to change the law this year.
