More than 250,000 people in North Carolina are set to lose their healthcare plans under Obamacare due to two of the state’s three insurers dropping out of the exchange.
The insurers’ departure from the exchange means that only one insurer will be available for people to purchase plans from, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, and they are raising their rates by nearly 25 percent, the Washington Post reported.
The Obama Administration says the exchanges are still viable despite these departures. According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 60 percent of Americans in the marketplaces will be able to choose from three or more insurers with multiple plans to choose from, the Post reports.
North Carolina is not the only state where 95 of its 100 counties will only have one insurer to choose from.
States such as Oklahoma, Alaska, Alabama, South Carolina and Wyoming only have one insurer to choose from on its exchanges for 2017 statewide.
Nearly three-fourths of Florida’s counties and more than four-fifths of Mississippi’s will also be down to one insurer.
Administration officials say that the lack of insurers returns to a pattern that predates Obamacare, where many in rural areas had a lack of coverage options.
But in many states, North Carolina being one of them, marketplace shoppers in urban areas will only have one insurer to choose from.
Breitbart previously reported that more than a million people are projected to lose their health insurance in 2017 because of insurers departing the exchanges.