Experimental Obamacare health plan exits Chicago and Atlanta exchanges

This Obamacare experiment is a flop.

Harken Health — billed as an "innovative" health insurer and started by America's biggest insurance company to appeal to Obamacare customers — will exit the only two government-run exchange markets where it was selling coverage after reportedly booking losses of about $70 million in the first half of this year.

The UnitedHealth Group unit — which offers unlimited primary care visits at no out-of-pocket cost to customers who use Harken Health clinics — continue selling plans outside of Obamacare exchanges in the individual and employer markets of both Chicago and Atlanta next year.

But its departure in 2017 from the Obamacare exchanges that serve those cities represents another setback for advocates of the Affordable Care Act and their efforts to offer individual health plan customers a broad range of affordable coverage options.

Harken in August said it was abandoning plans to sell Obamacare exchange coverage in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, next year.

​And Harken's parent, UnitedHealth, earlier this year said it would itself exit most Obamacare exchanges, including the federal marketplace that services Illinois, in 2017.

Read more at CNBC.