UnitedHealthcare leaving California ACA exchange

California insurance officials have confirmed UnitedHealthcare won’t be offering health coverage of the state’s Covered California marketplace in 2017.

Since the nation’s largest insurer announced in April it would leave all but a handful of the 34 state exchanges it had participated in for 2016, insurance regulators have made individual announcements about UnitedHealthcare departures from their states. The insurer had previously confirmed it was pulling out of the exchange in Arizona, and the Chicago Tribune reported on May 31 it would also be leaving the Illinois marketplace.

UnitedHealthcare said in April it had about 795,000 customers nationwide through the marketplaces. The California departure only affects about 1,200 exchange customers (out of a total 1.4 million in the state), according to the Los Angeles Times, because UnitedHealthcare had only begun offering plans on the state’s exchange in 2016. It will also be pulling out of the off-exchange individual market, but will continue offering coverage through employers.

Exchange customers who had purchased UnitedHealthcare plans will continue to be covered until the end of the year, but they will have to select new coverage during the next open enrollment period.

“We will learn in July whether any new plans will join Covered California or if any of our existing plans will expand their coverage areas, as they did in 2016,” Covered California spokesman James Scullary said to the LA Times.

As for where UnitedHealthcare will offer exchange plans in 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported a private site the insurer maintains for brokers lists that it has filed to offer “on-exchange products” in Nevada, New York and Virginia.

Additionally, UnitedHealthcare's Harken Health subsidiary, which bases plans around primary care clinics, will sell plans on exchanges in Florida, Georgia and Illinois.