UnitedHealth to trim ACA exchanges to 'handful' of states

UnitedHealth, the nation's biggest health insurer, will cut its participation in public health insurance exchanges to only a handful of states next year after expanding to nearly three dozen for this year.

The state-based exchanges are a key element behind the Affordable Care Act's push to expand insurance coverage.

Insurers say they have struggled, in particular, with customers who have signed up for coverage outside regular enrollment windows and then dumped expensive claims on their books, a problem the government has said it would address.

A dozen nonprofit health insurance cooperatives created by the ACA to sell coverage on the exchanges have already folded, and the survivors all lost millions last year.