Falling Under it's Own Weight, Aetna CEO says Obamacare Exchanges In A "Death Spiral"

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini is not hopeful for the future of the individual health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, based on comments he made on Wednesday.



Bertolini, whose company is one of the five large public health insurers, said that the exchanges are in a "death spiral" during a speech at a Wall Street Journal conference.



"It’s not going to get any better, it's getting worse," said Bertolini according to Politico's Paul Demko.



The idea behind Bertolini's comments are that as premiums increase on the exchanges, fewer young and healthy people will sign up for coverage.



This will leave a higher percentage of older, sicker people on the exchanges, making them more expensive for insurers. The losses from this sicker risk pool will cause insurers to pull out of the exchanges, fewer choices on the exchanges will lead to higher prices, and thus even fewer healthy people will sign up to balance the pool.



Bertolini has long expressed doubts about the exchanges. Aetna pulled its offerings from roughly 70% of the places it was doing business last year and the CEO said during a recent earnings call that the company is considering its footprint in 2018.