No Surprise Aetna Is Lying About Exchange Losses

I just wanted to follow up on the post about Aetna withdrawing from a number of Obamacare exchanges after the Justice Department blocked its merger with Humana on antitrust grounds. Aetna had contended that they were losing money on the exchanges which is why they were pull out. More cynical minds like myself believe it was payback for the Obama administration blocking the merger. As it turns out, one of the states that Aetna is abandoning is Pennsylvania. But the company’s rate application to Pennsylvania regulators showed that the company made $6.4 million for the calendar year of 2014, $13.6 million for 2015, and projected profitability for 2016 and 2017. If the company is withdrawing from profitable exchanges, the only logical explanation is that this really is payback for the blocked merger. Why are we not surprised.