title:  The Kaiser CEO LOVES Obamacare – Thinks Aetna Did It Wrong
text: You ve probably seen the headlines that Aetna, one of the largest providers in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, has pulled out. Critics of Obamacare had nothing but schadenfreude. They told us Obamacare was doomed and this was proof. As it turns out, Aetna s move was less about the viability of Obamacare (as they claimed) than about a personal and political vendetta against the President, whose administration denied a merger between Aetna and Humana.The CEO of one of the largest providers in the network thinks Aetna is completely wrong. Bernard Tyson of Kaiser Permanente thinks Obamacare has been great for his bottom line and that if Aetna was in fact losing money, it was because they were bad at managing it.Tyson does understand that it s a tough market. People have been sicker than anticipated, which makes sense. If you give millions of people who haven t been able to afford medical care medical care, it will take a few years to bring their health up to that of people who have had insurance. Congress hasn t helped either. Republicans have blocked the assistance that was being offered to the insurance companies to help with the transition.But, according to Tyson, that DOES NOT mean that Obamacare is a failure. The idea that I would turn my back on a segment of the American population who really needs the coverage and the care I m in for the long haul,  Tyson said.  And I m cautiously optimistic that at some point, we begin to make sure we have the right regulations, meaning oversight, to make sure the market is behaving like it was intended. Kaiser has made a  slight margin  overall on its ACA plans, Tyson said. Centene Corp., Molina Healthcare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida similarly have found ways to make money on the exchanges. Narrow networks of hospital and doctors, as well as high deductibles, have worked for Medicaid plans like Centene and Molina. Florida Blue has relied on higher premiums than its peers.Source: Modern Health Care</blockquote>Another problem is that the insurers themselves may be pricing themselves out of the market because of the *drum roll* free market. There were conscious decisions made in the pricing of the product when it first started that did not hold logic to the marketplace,  Tyson said.  This is not rocket science. There s a pool of people to take care of, there s an underwriting process, and there were decisions made that   I m going to consciously underprice, and what I m going to do is gain market share and over time it s going to work itself out. Here s the full interview. It s quite interesting, and if you live in a Kaiser market, it might be worth supporting them:Featured image via video screen capture. 