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In a new blow to Obamacare, the Kentucky Health Cooperative has decided not to offer health insurance plans for 2016.

The Kentucky co-op (Consumer Oriented and Operated Plan), a nonprofit health insurer created with federal taxpayer funds under Obamacare, announced its fold on Friday.

“It is with sadness that we announce this decision,” said Kentucky Health Cooperative interim CEO Glenn Jennings in a statement. “This very difficult choice was made after much deliberation. If there were a way to avoid it and simultaneously do right by the members, providers and all others that we serve, we would do so.”

Under the 2010 Affordable Care act, 23 health exchange co-ops were created. Kentucky Health is the fifth co-op to go under.

https://archive.is/GFE5F

http://dailysignal.com/2015/10/14/another-obamacare-collapse-kentucky-health-co-op-goes-under/

A 10th co-op created under Obamacare has collapsed.

Combined, the failed nonprofit insurance companies have received more than $1 billion in loans with more than 600,000 consumers affected.

The latest casualty, the Utah Insurance Department, announced yesterday that Arches Health Plan, a consumer oriented and operated plan, or co-op, will not sell insurance in 2016. The co-op received $89.7 million in loans from the federal government.

“It is regrettable that the co-op model has not worked across the country,” Utah Insurance Commissioner Todd Kiser said in a statement.

Co-ops were created under the Affordable Care Act as a way to inject competition into markets where few health insurance choices existed. Nearly 50,000 consumers purchased plans through Arches Health Plan, and the co-op notified those customers that they will [BE FORCED] to buy new insurance plans beginning Nov. 1 to have coverage next year.

https://archive.is/DEsDt

http://dailysignal.com/2015/10/28/the-10th-co-op-created-under-obamacare-has-collapsed-leaving-nearly-50000-consumers-to-find-new-insurance/

UnitedHealth CEO Regrets Entering Obamacare

The CEO of UnitedHealthcare on Tuesday said he regretted the decision to enter the ObamaCare marketplace last year, which the company says has resulted in millions of dollars in losses.

“It was for us a bad decision,” UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley said at an investors' meeting in New York, according to Bloomberg Business.

UnitedHealth, the country’s largest insurer, announced last month that it would no longer advertise its ObamaCare plans over the next year and may pull out completely in 2016 — a move that sent shockwaves across the healthcare industry.

Hemsley’s remarks double down on his earlier warning that the ObamaCare exchanges remain weaker than expected after two years and that it will take far longer for insurers to profit from the millions of new enrollees.

The company had already eyed ObamaCare’s federal marketplace cautiously since it launched in 2013. UnitedHealth only began selling plans on the exchanges last year.

Now, UnitedHealth officials have said that move will result in a half-billion dollars in losses over two years.

Hemsley said it was smart to sit out of the exchanges for the first year, but that the company should have held out another year.

“In retrospect, we should have stayed out longer,” he said, adding that he believes the marketplace will take more than “a season or two” to develop.

“We did not believe it would form this slowly, be this porous, or become this severe,” he added.

https://archive.is/BuTNw

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/261617-unitedhealth-ceo-regrets-entering-obamacare-marketplace

Consumers Mutual Insurance of Michigan announced it will be closing its doors, making it the 12th co-op created under Obamacare to shutter.

A 12th Obamacare co-op has decided to close its doors after receiving more than $71 million in taxpayer-funded loans and enrolling more than 25,000 consumers in health insurance.

Consumers Mutual Insurance of Michigan and the state Department of Insurance and Financial Services announced their decision to wind down the co-op’s operations last week, bringing the total number of closed co-ops initially created under Obamacare to a dozen.

Since Obamacare was implemented in 2013, a dozen co-ops, including Consumers Mutual Insurance of Michigan, have closed their doors. Collectively, the failed co-ops received more than $1.2 billion and enrolled more than 700,000 Americans in health insurance, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and regulatory filings.

The federal government awarded $2.4 billion total to 23 co-ops created by the health care law.

https://archive.is/9FFJm

http://trendwave.com/obamacare/12th-obamacare-co-op-closes---the-daily-signal