Iowa Insurer Wellmark to Participate Health Exchange in 2017

Iowa’s dominant health insurer has agreed to start selling policies for 2017 that will qualify for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, the company announced.

Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield has not previously participated in the Affordable Care Act’s online health insurance marketplace, which was launched in the fall of 2013, according to the Des Moines Register.

As a result, moderate-income Iowa residents were not able to choose Wellmark insurance if they wanted to purchase policies that qualified for new federal subsidies to help pay their premiums.

Wellmark sells more than three-quarters of all health insurance policies that Iowa consumers purchase on their own in lieu of coverage through an employer or government program.

Other insurers have participated in the marketplace, also known as an exchange. Three carriers are selling policies statewide for 2016.

Most other Blue Cross plans nationally have participated in their states’ exchanges, and Iowa’s governor and insurance commissioner encouraged Wellmark to do so. But Wellmark contended that the federal health care website wasn’t working well, and that the financial risks of selling there weren’t clear enough to protect current Wellmark policy-holders from harm.

The company said that the system has become established and the legality of the federal subsidies has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We have said consistently that it was not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ we would join the public exchange,” Wellmark Chairman John Forsyth said in prepared statement. “As a mutual insurance company, we make decisions that are in the best interest of our members — I believe we have done that today.”