Small US insurers fill gaps for MS health exchanges

(Reuters) - When the state of Mississippi begins offering subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama's reform law this year, residents will have only one choice - Magnolia Health Plan - a small insurer little known in most of the country. The Obama administration hoped to attract robust competition in creating the exchanges, and it is counting on millions of Americans without coverage to sign up for these plans in the program's first year. But the nation's biggest insurers have decided against joining the exchanges on a large scale, professing uncertainty about the roll-out and how much the uninsured would participate.