🔒ConnectiCare continues slow withdrawal from CT market

Farmington-based ConnectiCare continues to slowly pull back its insurance offerings in the state, even as officials with parent company Molina Healthcare say they remain committed to Connecticut. California-based Molina notified insurance brokers in February that it plans to exit Medicare Advantage Part D plans — private Medicare Advantage policies that include prescription drug coverage — for the 2027 plan year. The publicly traded company cited “underperformance” in the Part D business in its fourth-quarter earnings report. “This decision reflects a strategic shift to focus on Dual Eligible products that align with Molina’s core Medicaid platform,” the email states, referring to consumers who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. The email adds that plan members will not be informed about the change until the next enrollment period, which begins in October. According to Molina’s earnings report, the Medicare Advantage prescription drug product line represents about $1 billion in annual premiums nationwide. Connecticut insurance brokers who spoke with the Hartford Business Journal said ending the plans will affect about 48,000 people in the state, all age 65 or older. Jason Gutcheon, a partner at West Hartford-based Professional Business Insurers, said Molina’s decision is partly driven by low Medicare reimbursement rates that are not expected to increase significantly. Gutcheon said he’s surprised Molina has not attempted to sell its book of existing Part D plans to another company. “Why wouldn’t you look for a buyer, even if it’s just 50 cents on the dollar?” he asked. Gutcheon added that what makes Molina’s decision worse is that his clients like ConnectiCare’s Part D plans, citing a high client satisfaction rate. “I’ve been doing business with ConnectiCare for 25, 30 years,” he said. “They were a significant part of the market. They were a player, in terms of member satisfaction and their reputation. … Molina is rotten to do this.”

Shrinking presence

The decision to end Medicare Advantage prescription drug plans in Connecticut follows ConnectiCare’s earlier moves to exit other business lines in the state. In November 2022, when ConnectiCare was still owned by New York-based EmblemHealth, it announced plans to withdraw from the state’s fully insured, small group market serving employers with 50 or fewer workers. Since then, Aetna, Cigna/Oscar Health and nonprofit Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare have all also left that market in the state. In July 2024, EmblemHealth announced it had entered into an agreement to sell ConnectiCare to Molina Healthcare for $350 million. That deal was completed in February last year. Then, in May 2025, ConnectiCare informed brokers it planned to end its self-funded and level-funded business in Connecticut beginning in July. The following month, ConnectiCare told brokers it would also exit the state’s fully insured large-group market. Still, ConnectiCare remains one of two carriers in the state’s individual market, along with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. According to the state Insurance Department, ConnectiCare reported covering 74,583 people in the individual Affordable Care Act market in its 2025 rate filing for the 2026 plan year. That compares with 83,790 people covered by Anthem. For the small group, fully insured market, ConnectiCare’s last filing was in 2022 (for the 2023 plan year), when it reported covering 20,061 people. According to the state’s 2025 Consumer Report Card, ConnectiCare reported 2024 enrollment of 20,166 across both fully insured and self-insured plans in the large-group market. In response to a request for comment from Hartford Business Journal, a Molina spokesperson sent a one-sentence statement about ConnectiCare’s plans for the state’s insurance market. “Molina Healthcare is committed to Connecticut, including ConnectiCare’s long-standing participation in the state’s individual marketplace,” the spokesperson said.