Catastrophe: Last Remaining Obamacare Co-Ops Teetering On Total Collapse

Matt Vespa | March 02, 2016 10:53 AM

Editor's Note: The original post was written in a way that made it look like Obamacare co-ops and exchanges were the same thing. They're not. We deeply apologize for the error. The post has been updated to reflect the changes.

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To channel Donald Trump, Obamacare is a disaster. Guy had the latest on President Obama’s signature domestic achievement, where approval for the new law has surged…to 26 percent. Premiums for the plans offered under the Affordable Care Act are projected to skyrocket, which is prompting Americans to pay the penalty to remain uninsured. Concerning the health care industry, those premiums don’t seem to be able to keep them afloat, with some insurance companies, facing massive losses, considering opting out of the Obamacare market by 2017. In North Carolina, Blue Cross and Blue Shield offers Obamacare plans to all of the state’s 100 counties. In the first year alone, five percent of their ACA customers consumed $830 million in health care costs; they only collected $75 million in premiums. That’s with the subsidy. On top of that, virtually every remaining Obamacare co-op is teetering on total catastrophe (via WFB):

An official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told lawmakers last week that eight of the 11 remaining Obamacare co-ops have been selected for “corrective action plans” and “enhanced oversight.”

Twenty-three co-ops were created under the president’s health care overhaul, and so far more than half have collapsed and are no longer selling plans in the marketplace. The 12 co-ops that went out of business operated in Arizona, Michigan, Utah, Kentucky, New York, Nevada, Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, South Carolina and a co-op serving Iowa and Nebraska.

The agency’s chief operating officer, Dr. Mandy Cohen, told the House Oversight and Government Reform committee that the 11 co-ops that remain are “being monitored closely,” and that eight have a corrective action plan in place and are under enhanced oversight.