The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today!
If you’re on one of those pay-your-own-way, individual health-insurance plans with Aetna, you’re about to be dumped. The company, which covers 22,000 Coloradans, is ditching the state after execs concluded Aetna can “no longer meet the needs of its consumers while remaining competitive” locally, according to the Denver Post. Aetna is the sixth-largest provider of individual plans in Colorado, among some 75 insurers overall. The company is “vague” about its reasons for leaving, writes the Wall Street Journal, which notes, however, that the new federal health law requires companies to pay 80 percent of premiums collected from individuals and small businesses on medical care, rather than profits and administration.
The rule has raised questions about whether small plans will remain profitable, although Tom Abel, supervisor of the Colorado insurance division’s rates and forms section, maintains, “The market will still be competitive.” Meanwhile, Longmont’s Daily Times-Call looks at a grant program helping to keep health care accessible in Colorado’s underserved areas. The program pays new doctors up to $150,000 in exchange for three years of service to help them pay off their student loans.