Aetna pulls out of New York health insurance exchange

Thu Aug 29, 2013 10:57am EDT

(Reuters) - Aetna Inc, the No. 3 U.S. health insurer, said on Thursday it has decided not to sell insurance on New York's individual health insurance exchange, part of the country's healthcare reform.

New York is the fifth state where Aetna has pulled its application to sell the plans that go on sale on October 1 and into effect on January 1, 2014. It has also reversed course in Maryland, Ohio, Georgia, and Connecticut, where it is based.

Aetna spokesman Cynthia Michener said it made the move after assessing its business strategy, following the acquisition of smaller insurer Coventry Healthcare in May. Coventry also filed applications to sell plans in more than 10 states…..ToRead More…

Editor's Note:  The link to this article was preceded by this commentary by John Haywood.

The numbers are in, and ObamaCare's transformation of America into a part-time workforce is beyond dispute. Even last year's anemic job creation saw six full-time jobs produced for every part-time position. But this year, only one full-time job is being created for every four new part-time jobs.

Has anything like this ever happened before? The American workforce is collapsing overall, but the full-time workforce is in free fall. And there's no mystery about why: ObamaCare heavily penalizes companies that employ too many full-time workers. President Obama's much-discussed - and flagrantly illegal - delay of the employer mandate didn't change the equation... because the start date for tallying up full-time positions and imposing those job-crushing mandates didn't change.

ObamaCare affects different states in different ways, depending on the prior condition of their insurance markets. That's a point deliberately obscured by chipper Administration pronouncements that people in New York or Massachusetts might see their premiums dip a little. Of course, they don't want to discuss the vast majority of states where premiums will go up, sometimes at skyrocket velocity.

It's all such a scam, a cheap political game played to keep Americans (and especially the Republican leadership) confused and subdued until the immense, fraud-riddled subsidy system kicks in at the beginning of next year. That's the only "deadline" anyone in the Administration really cares about, because at that point, the logic of "progressivism" says the Affordable Care Act will become impossible to defund or repeal, no matter how awful it gets.

Can there be any further doubt that a serious "pivot to job creation" - especially full-time job creation - must begin with the immediate repeal of ObamaCare?