The Obama administration is urging calm after news of an insurer’s exit from large areas, but one critic isn’t buying it.

Citing losses of $500 million, Blue Cross Blue Shield says it will not offer plans in Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville next year. That comes after BCBS announced it will leave Nebraska’s exchange entirely.

“This is just part of a pattern of insurers fleeing the ObamaCare exchanges because ObamaCare promised more than it can deliver,” responds Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute.

He explains his comment: “It promised more than it can deliver in terms of covering people with pre-existing conditions because they’re very expensive – and there is never the will in the body politic to provide the kind of coverage that ObamaCare wants to provide to those people in the manner that ObamaCare tries to do it, which is very expensive.” (Related article by Cannon)

Despite the exit of Blue Cross Blue Shield from the Tennessee counties, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says Tennesseans need not worry.

“All Tennesseans will have access to coverage next year, and thanks to financial assistance most people will be able to select a plan for less than $75 per month,” HHS press secretary Marjorie Connolly told The Washington Free Beacon. “We look forward to Tennesseans coming to shop for plans that include free preventive care and no lifetime limits when open enrollment begins on November 1.”

Cannon tells OneNewsNow that Connolly is right about no lifetime limits and free preventive care – at least for now.

“But they’re really a hair’s breadth away from those promises being exposed as false as well,” he says. “The administration is in a pretty tough spot here. They’re doing their best to put lipstick on this pig.”