EDITORIAL: ObamaCare unravels: Aetna’s exit

May 18--As Democrats demonize any GOP attempt to repeal and replace ObamaCare, the disaster of their own design continues to implode. Insurance giant Aetna has bid hasta la vista to all of ObamaCare's health insurance exchanges next year.

Unfortunately for the acolytes of ObamaCare, their grandiose goal of "affordable" health care for all becomes a tad problematic when people can't find individual insurance coverage -- or find it preferable to pay the penalty for not having insurance.

Aetna reportedly lost $700 million (pretax) on individual market insurance products between 2014 and 2016. Not that this is surprising: Because of ObamaCare's hamhanded attempt to reinvent health insurance, nearly half of the original 395 insurers selling plans in individual markets have dropped out, according to The Daily Signal.

That's because the government's exchanges are disproportionately enrolling older, sicker people while discouraging the inclusion of younger, healthier people with outrageous premiums and deductibles. Which is why, based on 2015 data, an estimated 6.5 million people paid the mandate penalty, which was intended to compel people to remain insured.

For this widening mess, unfortunately, there is no quick fix. Indeed, a solution is going to take considerably more reason and intelligence than the numbskull assumptions about health insurance that went into ObamaCare.

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