Wellmark will leave the Obamacare marketplace in Iowa on January 1, 2018. They lost $90 million on those policies in the last year. The company cannot afford to continue to lose that much money. Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield is the largest insurance company in the state. If they cannot operate in the current environment, smaller companies will not be able to replace them.
The company says the problem is that too few healthy young consumers are willing to buy policies they neither want nor need. If the company had more young people enrolled who never made a claim and just paid high premiums, they would be able to continue in the market.
The sound of "I told you so!" is louder than ever.