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The nation’s biggest nonprofit health insurer spawned by the Affordable Care Act has been ordered to shut down as it reels toward insolvency, disrupting coverage for more than 200,000 New York state residents and becoming the fourth such co-op to collapse in recent months. The action Friday to force Health Republic Insurance of New York out of business was a coordinated maneuver by state regulators and by federal health officials, who have been trying to nurture fledgling co-ops while dealing with the reality that most are hemorrhaging red ink. (Goldstein, 9/25)

The insurer lost about $52.7 million in the first six months of this year, on top of a $77.5 million loss in 2014, according to regulatory filings. ... The shuttering of Health Republic, at least the fourth to falter among the ACA’s original 23 co-ops around the country, reflects the losses many insurers are seeing in their business related to the health law’s exchanges, which are particularly acute for small plans without deep pockets or diversified lines of business. (Wilde Mathews, 9/25)

The Department of Financial Services said Friday that current individual coverage should continue through Dec. 31 for 108,000 people, most of whom signed up through the New York Health Exchange. DFS and the state Health Department said existing small group plans also remain in effect, covering another 101,500 people. Most of those policies were bought outside the exchange established under the federal Affordable Care Act. The agencies said they will evaluate how to proceed with those policies based on Health Republic's ongoing financial results. (Virtanen, 9/25)

Government officials are shutting down a nonprofit health insurer in New York set up under Obamacare because of its financial struggles, the latest blow to the healthcare law’s nonprofit plans. State regulators and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced on Friday that they are winding down the co-op operations of the insurer, called Health Republic. (Sullivan, 9/25)

Health Republic Insurance of New York will close up shop by year-end, marking one of the biggest blows to the Affordable Care Act's co-op program to date. Health Republic is the largest not-for-profit co-op in the country with approximately 200,000 members as of this past spring, or roughly one-fifth of all people enrolled in a co-op health plan. But like almost all of the other co-ops, which have been seeded with loans from the ACA, Health Republic was losing money after it attracted some of the sickest and costliest members in its market. (Herman, 9/25)