Tennesseans' Obamacare Options Shrink After Humana Pulls Out Of Exchanges

NASHVILLE, TN — On Tuesday, Humana became the first major national health insurance provider to announce it was pulling out of the insurance exchanges in 2018 and the move will leave many Tennesseans with few — and in some cases, no — options for buying federally-mandated coverage through the program established by the imperiled Affordable Care Act.

In 2017, Humana and Cigna are the only providers offering coverage in the Nashville metropolitan area and unless something changes, Nashvillians who use the exchange to get their required coverage will have no choice but to go with the latter. The story will be the same in Memphis.

But Nashvillians and Memphians at least have a choice. Humana was the only provider offering coverage to people in the Knoxville area and as it stands now, residents of the state's third-largest city will have no options on the exchange next year.

Plans bought for 2017 are valid through December 31.

Of course, there's no guarantee that the health-care exchanges will even exist a year from now, as many Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump have vowed to "repeal and replace" or "repeal and repair" former President Barack Obama's signature health law.

If the ACA does survive another year though, the only option for some Tennesseans will be to go off-exchange, though those plans don't qualify for the subsidies that make coverage affordable for many people.

Humana's decision made manifest concerns that have been raised for months by Tennessee's Commissioner of Insurance Julie Mix McPeak, who has repeatedly spoken about the possibility of the individual market evaporating in Tennessee, particularly after BlueCross BlueShield left the state's three biggest cities' exchanges and United pulled out of the Tennessee exchanges completely.

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