Health and Disability

UnitedHealth is certainly a big fish in the insurance industry, but they’re a rather small one in the marketplace pond. They opted not participate in the first open enrollment period and subsequently lost out on the opportunity to make a first impression when millions of Americans logged on and purchased quality, affordable health insurance, some for the first time in their lives. The late entry, and perhaps plans offered, has contributed to UnitedHealth representing roughly 5.5 percent of the nearly 10 million Americans purchasing coverage through marketplaces.

And while UnitedHealth may be struggling to find the right recipe to provide attractive benefits and entice consumers to purchase their plans over ones they’ve had in the past, other larger players, such as Kaiser Permanente and Aetna, have shown no indication of slowing down.

One would hope that UnitedHealth would stay in the marketplaces, and even build on their current expansion plans for 2017 and beyond. But at this time, UnitedHealth’s small footprint in the markets fails to make their comments a broader indication of the health of the marketplaces as a whole.