Another day, another ObamaCARE co-op bites the dust. This time it’s Minuteman Health of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They announced it is withdrawing from the ObamaCARE exchanges in 2018. Only 4 ObamaCARE co-ops remaining after Minuteman Health pulls out in 2018. This is why the House and Senate bills suck. They don’t repeal or replacement ObamaCARE. They just continue it with a couple of little tweaks that the media and Democrats have been able to exploit.
| 19th Obamacare Co-Op Folds |
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The company cited issues with Obamacare’s risk-adjustment program, which is the program that shifts money away from those with healthier customers to those with sicker enrollees. Minuteman Health said that the negative impact of this program had been “substantial.”
“Unfortunately, the program has not worked as intended,” the company said. “It has been difficult for insurers to predict their risk-adjustment obligations, which has led some to withdraw from the ACA market.”
“The program also unfairly penalizes issuers like MHI that are small, low cost, and experience high growth,” the company said. “The significant relative impact from risk adjustment has been the principal driver of a reduction in MHI’s surplus and capital over 2 [sic] time.”
The co-op was able to grow to 37,000 members since it began in 2014 but said that being subject to certain co-op rules made it hard to adjust its business model to mitigate issues with the risk-adjustment program. The co-op was awarded $156.4 million in taxpayer-funded loans in 2012 and 2013.