Obamacare is facing the hard knocks of reality. Selling overpriced insurance to the healthy and underpriced insurance to the sick is not a good model for insurance companies.

Aetna (AET) is the latest insurer to say it has had enough. Aetna announced it withdraw from 11 of 15 states where it currently offers plans through the exchanges.

Pinal County Arizona, in the Phoenix area, may have no insurers offering plans.

The Wall Street Journal reports Aetna will reduce the number of counties where it sells exchange plans next year to 242 from 778.

Aetna Inc. will withdraw from 11 of the 15 states where it currently offers plans through the Affordable Care Act exchanges, becoming the latest of the major national health insurers to pull back sharply from the law’s signature marketplaces after steep financial losses.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona said in June that it would withdraw from Pinal County and Maricopa County, in the wake of steep losses, but maintain its exchange presence in the remainder of the state. The nonprofit had said in June that it stayed in more-rural counties partly because it “couldn’t overlook that several counties would have no options or very limited access if we didn’t find a way to stay in the market.” A spokeswoman had no immediate comment late Monday.

Aetna will reduce the number of counties where it sells exchange plans next year to 242 from 778, a dramatic turn that came a few weeks after the insurer said it expected steep losses for the year and would reconsider its participation in the market, which it had previously called an important opportunity.

Aetna’s move comes after UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Humana Inc. already unveiled major reductions in their ACA-plan offerings, and as more nonprofit cooperative insurers have said they will fold.

“I see an erosion of freedom of choice,” said Jim O’Connor, a principal at consultants Milliman Inc., both among different insurers but also among health-care providers, as more exchange plans feature limited networks of hospitals and doctors.

Mispriced Insurance and Unstable Economics

Those wondering why Aeta and other insurers are abandoning Obamacare in droves will find the answer in the Unstable Economics of Obamacare.

Obamacare on Death Bed

Obamacare, as we know it now, is on the death bed. It will likely be replaced by an even bigger fiasco requiring still more taxpayer subsidies coupled with fewer market incentives to reduce costs.

Gee, who predicted this?