Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and more than two dozen Senate Democrats are now pushing the “public option” – the creation of government-run insurance entities designed to compete with private companies. It’s something liberals advocated for, unsuccessfully, during the original debate over the law. Conservatives say Democrats are only reviving the call now as a last resort, as major private insurers scale down their involvement considerably, up-front costs rise and doctor choices narrow.
“I think we're seeing the public option come back out of desperation,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum. “We’ve seen UnitedHealthcare groups, the Aetnas of the world withdraw from exchanges.”
Last month, Aetna announced it was withdrawing from 11 of the 15 states where it offers ObamaCare plans. The company said it made the decision “following a thorough business review and in light of a second-quarter pretax loss of $200 million and total pretax losses of more than $430 million since January 2014 in our individual products.”
UnitedHealthcare and Humana announced similar intentions, citing widespread losses in their ObamaCare insurance businesses.
