Bernard Tyson, chief executive of insurer Kaiser Permanente, said Thursday that the company would be sticking with the Obamacare exchanges, despite acknowledging that they were unstable.
Tyson, speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Healthcare event in New York, said the exchanges were not in a “death spiral,” as Mark Bertolini, Aetna’s chairman and CEO, said at a Wall Street Journal event in February.
“I would not use that term because we have 20-plus million people getting access to care through the front door,” he said. “That’s progress.”
Kaiser operates in the exchanges in California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, Virginia and Washington State.
The pledge to remain in the exchanges contrasts that of other health insurance companies.
Aetna announced Wednesday that it would be pulling out completely from participating in the exchanges, and others have said they will wait to find out whether President Trump will continue to fund payments that help insurers reduce out-of-pocket medical expenses for customers. Initial rate filings in some states for insurers planning to participate in the 2018 exchanges show requests for steep hikes in premiums, which insurers attribute partially to uncertainty about the future of Obamacare but also to the structure of the exchanges and their failure to bring about a balanced risk pool.
