Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Ohio Health Insurance Co-Op Becomes 13th To Close
Ohio鈥檚 co-op will become the thirteenth of the 23 co-ops created under the Affordable Care Act to fold. The Ohio Department of Insurance requested to liquidate the state鈥檚 health insurance co-op, InHealth Mutual, the state announced Thursday. Nearly 22,000 Ohio residents will have 60 days to replace their InHealth policy with another company鈥檚 on the federal exchange. (McIntire, 5/26)
The state has taken over a struggling health-insurance cooperative based in Westerville that was set up to be a lower-cost option for Ohioans who shop the federally-run health insurance marketplace. (Williams, 5/26)
The closure represents a significant disruption for the enrollees. The Obama administration and state regulators had worked to shut down any financially shaky co-ops before 2016 enrollment began on Nov. 1, in an attempt to avoid such failure in the middle of the coverage year. But that is now happening in Ohio. ... ObamaCare set up the nonprofit co-op health insurers as a way to increase competition in the insurance market. Many of the co-ops have gone out of business. Just 10 of the original 23 will now remain. (Sullivan, 5/26)
UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Humana Inc., two of the largest U.S. health insurers, are quitting the Obamacare market in Colorado next year. Bright Health, a startup that hasn鈥檛 yet signed up its first customer, sees opportunity. The new health insurer, led by former UnitedHealth executive Bob Sheehy, picked Colorado as its initial state market. (Tracer, 5/26)
The Obamacare "boondoggle" may be over for Massachusetts. All Massachusetts hospitals were supposed to get a funding boost out of Obamacare 鈥 a state-specific provision derided by Republicans since 2010 as a goodie called the 鈥淏ay State Boondoggle.鈥 (Haberkorn, 5/26)
News that a CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield subsidiary will stop selling bronze level plans on the Virginia marketplace next year prompted some speculation that it could signal a developing movement by insurers to drop that level of coverage altogether. The reality may be more complicated and interesting, some experts said, based on an analysis of plan data. (Andrews, 5/27)
