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DakotaCare To Exit Federal Health Insurance Marketplace

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Health insurer DakotaCare won’t offer individual polices through the federal marketplace this year.

DakotaCare CEO Kirk Zimmer tells The Argus Leader ( ) the insurer cannot afford to offer the policies. He says “it’s not sustainable to a point that we wouldn’t want to endanger other policies.”

The federal marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act offers subsidized private health insurance to qualifying people. Federal health officials have estimated that nearly 19,000 South Dakota residents have signed up and paid for health insurance plans offered in the marketplace.

Zimmer says customers whose policies will be discontinued have been notified. DakotaCare sold about 7,000 individual health care policies on the marketplace during the last enrollment period.

Avera Health Plans and Sanford Health Plan are the only insurers that will offer plans in the marketplace during the enrollment season that begins Nov. 1.

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Information from: Argus Leader,