Cigna Drops ACA in 2027
Yesterday Cigna announced their withdrawal from the the Affordable Care Act for 2027. This impacts customers in 11 states.
This leaves me in the state of TN with 3 healthcare companies (Ambetter, BCBS, and United Healthcare) of which now only 1 is accepted by health providers and hospital systems in my area.
Are other people across the nation running into this issue? If we don't have the ACA plans I assume the only other option is buying private insurance. Is that what others are doing? For reference, we retired last year and have someone in the family with a chronic illness requiring heavy use of medical care.
Thanks, Wes
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To be blunt, I don't know that there will be any other options if you have someone with a pre-existing condition. Direct Primary Care is likely not going to be comprehensive enough and health shares won't cover your pre-existing conditions. Whatever might be left of insurance company offerings outside of the ACA will not cover pre-existing conditions either.
For a company to offer an ACA health plan in your area, they have to cover a certain number of providers of each type. This "network adequacy" requirement means they can't just sell insurance while having no in-network providers. It might not be the providers that you prefer, and their definition of area might be larger than ideal, but there should at least be something there. If not, you may have a case to force an exception in allowing your providers to be in-network for you when the plan has them out-of-network.
I hope you can find something that meets your needs!
I appreciate this detailed info and confirms my understanding of other options. Just a little unsettling as so many early retirees are planning to or already using the ACA and it's becoming more difficult. If they start looking at assets instead of income, then we're really in trouble.
To be fair, the initial concerns you raised are not unique to ACA plans. Employer-based coverage can also change year to year and require different doctors or longer trips. And there’s often less choice than with the ACA marketplace.
But yes if they somehow work assets into the subsidy calcs that would be a big change. While things could change in the future, I’ve yet to hear the idea even floated in passing by any politician. So we should be good for a while at least.
Thanks for sharing this, Wes. I'm moving to TN this summer and will be getting on ACA. What area are you in?
Knoxville