Anthem, Virginia’s largest healthcare provider, is pulling out of the Affordable Care Act marketplace – following other insurers who left the system earlier this year. Senator Mark Warner believes that is a troubling sign.

Nick Gilmore has details.

At a recent meeting with constituents during Congress’ August recess, Senator Warner said he thinks the decision by Anthem and other insurers to leave Virginia’s ACA marketplace is a direct result of the actions taken by President Donald Trump.

“By his putting into uncertainty the question of whether the cost-sharing reimbursements, whether the federal government was going to continue those; his failure to enforce part of the individual mandates has basically caused this you know what business hates the most, and I say this as a former business guy, is uncertainty.”

That uncertainty causes insurers to jack up their rates in an effort to protect themselves, which according to Warner leads to an unsustainable system.

Warner believes most Americans want to avoid a healthcare solution that results in somewhere between 16 and 32 million people lacking coverage:

“And there are rational solutions to do that from reinsurance, to the idea of selling insurance across state lines, a lot of my Republican colleagues support, I’d be supportive of that, the ability to offer cheaper plans on the individual marketplace so that there would be a copper plan, as well as a gold, silver and bronze; I mean there are solutions that we can work on here.”

Warner went on to say that he believes process on a compromise is halted by the president’s tendency to speak without thinking.