From the Mohave County News: About a third of the Arizonans who bought health insurance on the federal marketplace for 2015 will have to find a new provider following action by state insurance regulators to suspend the state’s nonprofit insurance co-op’s ability to sell new policies over concerns it could fail.
The suspension of Meritus Health Partners means about 59,000 people will need new insurance unless the order is lifted. More than 50,000 of those people bought their plans through the marketplace....
The Department of Insurance suspended Meritus from selling or renewing policies on Friday because of concerns it could fail, according to orders issued Friday. Meritus disagrees and said it has enough money to continue operations at least through 2016.
The orders show the two Meritus groups, a PPO and an HMO, lost a combined $22 million from Jan. 1 through Sept. 31 and if the losses continued it would eventually become insolvent.
Meritus is spending about $2 million a month more than it currently takes in from premiums, chief operating officer Jim Walsh said in an interview Monday. But that loss was part of the startup nonprofit’s business plan as it gains business and the firm has $30 million on hand — enough to keep operating through 2016 if the company doesn’t see improving profitability as it expects.
The company cut staff in August to save $12 million a year and increased premiums for 2016 at the request of the Department of Insurance.
“This really is all about not if we have enough cash to get between now and the end of the year,” Walsh said. “It’s about are we going to make it in 2016 and would it be messy for them if we went out of business.”
Meritus was one of 23 co-ops set up as part of a compromise in the Affordable Care Act to compete with for-profit insurance companies. But the co-ops have struggled, and Arizona’s became the 11th to stop selling policies or outright fail. http://www.mohavedailynews.com/news/health-insurance-order-means-must-find-new-coverage/article_8bb6563c-81fe-11e5-bfa0-4bc8718c5062.html
While ObamaCare had 2 or 3 good points to it, which could have dealt without the draconian ObamaCare bill, ObamaCare has been a huge disaster for this country. It has done very little to help people who did not have health insurance and it has screwed the rest of Americans with higher premiums, people losing coverage and 100,000's of part time and full time workers having their hours cut so that major employers did not have to provide health insurance.
And now 59,000 all of sudden will not have any health insurance and they have to go out and find it.
What a shameful legacy of Obama and the goose stepping democrats in Congress.
At the Prairie Café...
5 hours ago
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