Aetna unsure if it will continue participation in Obamacare exchanges

The nation’s third largest health insurer is painting a cloudy picture of its future on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges.

Aetna Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini said Tuesday that his company will announce by April 1 whether it plans to stay beyond this year in any of the four states where it currently sells coverage, and it’s “really impossible to consider entering any new markets.”

“We have nothing but bad news in front of us right now,” he told The Associated Press, as reported by the New York Times.

Aetna, which reported an otherwise strong fourth quarter, lost $450 million on ACA-compliant coverage last year. That’s $100 million more than it expected.

Plus, Bertolini noted that no new initiatives to improve the markets will be enacted by April 1, which is the ACA deadline for health insurers to state whether they will participate in next year’s exchanges.

Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump have vowed to repeal and replace the ACA.

Read the full story at the New York Times: Aetna Offers No Guarantees About ACA Future Beyond 2017 – The New York Times