Midday Roundup: Nation's largest insurer bails on Obamacare

Dropping out. In a major blow to Obamacare, the nation’s largest health insurer announced it’s bailing out of the Affordable Care Act. UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley told investors in an earnings conference call that in 2017 the company would offer plans in only a handful of Obamacare’s 34 exchanges. The move will affect a majority of the nearly 800,000 individuals enrolled in UnitedHealth’s Obamacare plans. Hemsley said small market share and the high risk profile of its Obamacare customers forced the company’s decision. UnitedHealth lost $475 million in Obamacare’s exchanges in 2015 and expects to lose $650 million this year.

Charges filed. Prosecutors have charged two state regulators and a Flint employee with evidence tampering and several other felony and misdemeanor counts in the Michigan city’s lead-tainted water crisis. The charges are the first levied in a probe that is expected to broaden. Officials failed to deploy lead corrosion controls after the city switched to the Flint River for its water supply, and residents used contaminated water for about 18 months. Michael Prysby, a state Department of Environmental Quality district engineer, and Stephen Busch, a supervisor with the department’s Office of Drinking Water, were both charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, tampering with evidence, and violations of water treatment and monitoring laws. Flint utilities administrator Michael Glasgow was charged with tampering with evidence for changing lead water-testing results and willful neglect of duty as a public servant.

Friends like these. President Barack Obama met with King Salman of Saudi Arabia this morning in Riyadh. His short visit to the country for a Persian Gulf summit comes amid increasingly strained U.S. relations with the Saudis, who remain deeply opposed to his outreach to Iran and skeptical of his approach to Syria. There’s also controversy brewing in the U.S. over Saudi Arabia’s suspected support of some of the 9/11 hijackers and plotters, 15 of whom were Saudi citizens. Obama is under pressure from Congress to release 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report that are believed to implicate Saudi officials. President George W. Bush originally censored the content for national security reasons. Obama said in a recent 60 Minutes interview that his administration is reviewing the confidential information and hopes to release it soon.

Still shaking. A magnitude-6.1 aftershock rattled the battered coast of Ecuador this morning. A magnitude-7.8 earthquake Saturday destroyed or damaged about 1,500 buildings, triggered mudslides, and left some 20,000 people homeless, the government said. The death toll is up to 525 people. Funerals have begun for some of the dead as hope of finding survivors in the rubble dwindles. This morning’s aftershock, the largest of more than 400 recorded since the first quake, sent frightened residents scrambling out of their homes and into the streets.

Required reform. The city of Ferguson, Mo., will make changes designed to improve the relationship between police and the public there under an agreement approved Tuesday by a federal judge. Reforms to the municipal code, which exacted financial penalties for minor infractions, will accompany police training, a civilian oversight board, and the use of body and squad car cameras. The Justice Department required the changes after an investigation found the municipal court system disproportionately punished poor and minority residents. The investigation began after the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014, which set off protests in Ferguson and throughout St. Louis, some of which turned violent.

WORLD Radio’s Mary Reichard and Jim Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report.