Uh-Oh !
More rate increases sought.
From the Wall Street Journal :
"The Affordable Care Act created a new kind of “cooperative” heralded by supporters of health reform. These Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, chartered and regulated by the states, would compete with for-profit health-insurance companies and were meant to appease disgruntled advocates of a single-payer and “public option” model for the nation’s health-care system.
All but one of the co-ops are operating in the red. One already has been shut down, and others are in precarious financial condition.
Generous federal loans helped 23 cooperatives to get up and running.
In practice, most co-ops have significantly underpriced premiums and grossly underestimated medical claims. Many seek significant premium increases for 2016: 58% for individual plans in Utah, 38% in Oregon and 25% in Kentucky, for example.
[An example:]
New York’s Health Republic Insurance received $265 million in federal loans and had the largest enrollment, with 155,000 members in 2014. Its premiums are significantly lower than established carriers in virtually every region of the state. But the co-op has applied for premium increases in 2016 of more than 14%, with some regions of the state as high as 30%. Industry actuaries believe that those raises will not be enough to offset high claims costs and the exhaustion of federal loan dollars.
etc., etc., etc. . . ."
[DonDiego recommends the reader read the article so as to defray any charges of cherry-picking. The bottom line: co-ops were established to offer an alternative to evil insurance companies. And 22 of 23 are losing money. DUH !]
DonDiego does not know how much of the Congressional appropriation [$2.4-billion] 'lent" to these co-ops has been, . . . he suspects it cannot and, therefore, will not be paid back.
DonDiego supposes raising the premiums on their customers will result in ever-decreasing customers; so payback becomes ever-more doubtful.
Something for nothing remains a distant dream, . . .
More rate increases sought.
From the Wall Street Journal :
"The Affordable Care Act created a new kind of “cooperative” heralded by supporters of health reform. These Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, chartered and regulated by the states, would compete with for-profit health-insurance companies and were meant to appease disgruntled advocates of a single-payer and “public option” model for the nation’s health-care system.
All but one of the co-ops are operating in the red. One already has been shut down, and others are in precarious financial condition.
Generous federal loans helped 23 cooperatives to get up and running.
In practice, most co-ops have significantly underpriced premiums and grossly underestimated medical claims. Many seek significant premium increases for 2016: 58% for individual plans in Utah, 38% in Oregon and 25% in Kentucky, for example.
[An example:]
New York’s Health Republic Insurance received $265 million in federal loans and had the largest enrollment, with 155,000 members in 2014. Its premiums are significantly lower than established carriers in virtually every region of the state. But the co-op has applied for premium increases in 2016 of more than 14%, with some regions of the state as high as 30%. Industry actuaries believe that those raises will not be enough to offset high claims costs and the exhaustion of federal loan dollars.
etc., etc., etc. . . ."
[DonDiego recommends the reader read the article so as to defray any charges of cherry-picking. The bottom line: co-ops were established to offer an alternative to evil insurance companies. And 22 of 23 are losing money. DUH !]
DonDiego does not know how much of the Congressional appropriation [$2.4-billion] 'lent" to these co-ops has been, . . . he suspects it cannot and, therefore, will not be paid back.
DonDiego supposes raising the premiums on their customers will result in ever-decreasing customers; so payback becomes ever-more doubtful.
Something for nothing remains a distant dream, . . .
