LONE Profitable ACA Insurance CO-OP Losing Millions

Can we NOW make it official?
Obamacare is a complete and abject FAILURE!

HERE is the latest evidence.

I suppose it might be just beating a dead donkey at this point...but THIS was the ONLY co-op that managed to show a profit last year...and now it is losing $17M.

On top of it all...Maine's Community Health Options is also cutting off enrollment. Over half of the original 23 public insurance exchanges have already folded...with each of the remaining 10 losing millions.

The lone health insurance cooperative to make money last year on the Affordable Care Act's public insurance exchanges is now losing millions and cutting off individual enrollment for 2016.

Maine's Community Health Options lost more than $17 million in the first nine months of this year, after making $10.9 million in the same period last year. A spokesman said higher-than-expected medical costs have hurt the cooperative.

The nonprofit's announcement casts further doubt on the future of insurance cooperatives devised during the ACA's creation to inject competition in insurance markets. These co-ops immediately struggled to build their businesses. More than half of the 23 created have already folded.

An Associated Press review of financial statements from 10 surviving co-ops shows that each has lost millions so far this year.

hosted.ap.org...

dp.

I really wish the proposal was a single payer system like Canada and UK. Instead we all got mandatory private health insurance with predictably higher and unequal premiums across the board. Even if he had only passed legislation to only make it so insurance cannot deny anyone coverage would have been better than the disaster that has been brouht upon us. Oh well. I still went the last two years without insurance with no penalty through a loop hole I found, but they closed it so now I had to enroll.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Put it back the way it was. Simply add the 2 or 3 things passed with Obamacare that were actually good and then go to the root of the problem....

Posted pricing for every non-emergency procedure online so we can shop for the best deal and force them to compete.

See Lasik surgery, quality and price goes down year over year. Why? because they compete and have to innovate to get your business.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Most of the major insurance companies have exit strategies and will be leaving the exchange in the next year or so. Not only can the insurance companies not afford it I couldn't afford it either. The actual 'plans' are terrible and the expenses is astronomical. It just goes to show that the 'Affordable' Care Act isn't at all affordable.

Just one of Obama's multitude of failures and he can't blame this one on Bush.

a reply to: AmericanRealist

I really wish the proposal was a single payer system like Canada and UK.

It should be put back the way it was and people can buy insurance or not. Before if you wanted insurance you got it and if you didn't want insurances or couldn't afford it then you didn't have insurance.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Misleading. The article points to co-op startups. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Anthem and Molina are MAKING money. Blue Cross/Blue Shield is one of the largest, if not the largest provider. It is my provider.

One must understand an article before making an incorrect conclusion.

a reply to: reldra

so its ok for only the huge insurance companies to make money and for the other guys to hemorrhage money because of a failed govt policy?

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: AmericanRealist

I really wish the proposal was a single payer system like Canada and UK.

It should be put back the way it was and people can buy insurance or not. Before if you wanted insurance you got it and if you didn't want insurances or couldn't afford it then you didn't have insurance.

All of that led to the reason the ACA was created. If you don;t have insurance, an emergency room can't turn you away and if you can't pay SOMEONE has to- be it in taxes or higher medical costs.

A big part of the problem is that many red states with the most poor refused to expand medicaid...which they would be paid back for almost completely by the federal government.

a reply to: Metallicus

well I guess it worked out for me for a few years. However, I would have been SOL in 2011 when I almost died from a car accident. The irony was it was only like the second year I ever had coverage. The company I worked for at the time removed the choice of no insurance and I had to enroll. I suppose I should thank them. The hospital billed my insurance for $250,000, they adjusted it to half of that.

Had I not had insurance, I would have been stuck with a quarter million dollar bill to fend for myself to figure it out. Thats when my head opened up and I realized maybe insurance is not so bad after all. I just dont like being told that I have to have it or face a penalty. If thats the case, then I will take a Canadian or UK version of health coverage and payment system.

originally posted by: roaland
a reply to: reldra

so its ok for only the huge insurance companies to make money and for the other guys to hemorrhage money because of a failed govt policy?

They were start ups. most people stayed with their original carriers like BC/BS, Univera, etc.

a reply to: AmericanRealist

I wish it was like the canadian or UK system, but Republicans would NEVER allow it. So, this is what was settled for and still Republicans tried to overturn it about 75 times.


When they are not busy trying to overturn the ACA, they are busy voting on Resolutions- declarative statements that have no basis in law- but make them look good.

originally posted by: reldra

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: AmericanRealist

...which they would be paid back for almost completely by the federal government.

and the federal govt gets their money from taxes taken from ppl like me who can't can't afford the insurance and is not eligible for any other option so when the govt starts taking more taxes, and they will have to if they wanna keep this quagmire, then even more money will needlessly be taken from my already small paycheck. no thank you. I'll take it how it was before.

I don't understand how it's a failure for the insurance companies to be honest. People are now FORCED to buy insurance, and insurance companies hiked their rates astronomically.

So let me get this straight. They charge more monthly, charge more on deductibles, have more customers, have subsidies guaranteed in tax dollars, but they are losing money? I don't know about you but something sure seems fishy here.

My health insurance went up 300%. It got so bad, I had to cancel, save for two months and then reinstate my policy during open enrollment. I had to pull some tricks in order to avoid this bull****...

That Obamacare penalty will be bigger than you think

Households that opt to go without health insurance in 2016 are set to get hit with an average Obamacare fine of $969.

That is 47 percent higher than the average $661 penalty per uninsured household for this year, a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed Wednesday.

And households without insurance that earn too much to qualify for financial aid to buy Obamacare plans will pay an even larger fine for 2016 — an average of $1,450, versus the average of $1,177 for 2015.

Uninsured households that would qualify for Obamacare subsidies to help pay for coverage face an average fine of $738 — nearly double the $389 average for this year.

a reply to: reldra

The Democrats in Congress (2009 and 2010) stopped the Public Option you know.





and this busting out puts a whole new meaning to "non-profit"

it's a tax it's a tax it's a tax

a reply to: reldra

That's kind of twisting history is it not?

A single Party had control of the government at that time and the ACA was exactly what that Party wanted. It was passed by them without their own members even reading it.

Laying any hint of blame on anyone else is a form of denial. It was poorly conceived and we all know who the authors were.

This failure of the Co-ops is hardly unexpected.

originally posted by: roaland

originally posted by: reldra

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: AmericanRealist

...which they would be paid back for almost completely by the federal government.

and the federal govt gets their money from taxes taken from ppl like me who can't can't afford the insurance and is not eligible for any other option so when the govt starts taking more taxes, and they will have to if they wanna keep this quagmire, then even more money will needlessly be taken from my already small paycheck. no thank you. I'll take it how it was before.

I think you formatted that wrong, but I get what you are saying.

When you have no insurance and get that 2k ER bill, I don't want to pay it. At least if you take the tax penalty, you paid part of it.

a reply to: reldra

but maybe the Republicans were only against it because it removed choice from your own coverage?? It was never pitched to be a system like our friends in the North or across the pond. Mandatory private insurance is exactly how it was marketed from the beginning. I think the conservative lawmakers may have been more open to the single payer.

a reply to: reldra

paying the fine for the first two years of this is way way way cheaper then buying and maintaining a policy.