UnitedHealth Group's insurance business, UnitedHealthcare, will sell individual policies on Massachusetts' government-run insurance exchange after largely exiting the exchanges in 2017, according to the Star Tribune.
UnitedHealthcare is required to sell individual coverage for 2019 on Massachusetts' exchange, as the nation's largest health insurer now covers 5,000-plus state residents through small employer health plans. Under Massachusetts law, individual and small-group markets are merged, requiring UnitedHealthcare to sell on the individual exchange as well.
"It wasn't necessarily a voluntary decision on our part," David Wichmann, CEO of UnitedHealth, told investors the week of July 16, according to the Star Tribune. "I'm going to kind of reaffirm that nothing has fundamentally changed since we made our decision several years back now."
The health insurer abandoned most of the country's ACA exchanges, save for Nevada and New York, after it lost $1.3 billion on the individual market in 2015 and 2016.
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