The nonprofit health insurance companies created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act say they have showed early signs of success within the exchanges and hope to expand heading into next year's enrollment.
Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or CO-OPs, are nonprofit, consumer-governed health insurers. Currently, there are 23 CO-OPs throughout the country, and they have received almost $2 billion in federal loans to get their projects off the ground. The National Alliance of State Health CO-OPs, or NASHCO, met with President Barack Obama and his administration Thursday to discuss how the exchanges have progressed thus far.
Three of the CO-OPs — Kentucky Health Cooperative, Maine Community Health Options and New Mexico Health Connections — said the 2014 exchange enrollment has allowed the industry to make "tremendous progress in a very short time frame." For example, Kentucky Health Cooperative is one of only two insurers in Kentucky's exchange, and it has sold 75 percent of the exchange plans throughout the state. Maine Community Health Options has similarly captured a high concentration of the exchange's market share (80 percent).
According to NASHCO, states that included a CO-OP in their exchange had consumer premium rates that were 9 percent lower, on average, than states that didn't have a CO-OP. CO-OPs were supposed to be included in every state, but during the fiscal cliff debates of 2012, Congress rescinded the remaining $2.3 billion left in the program's coffers, meaning 26 states were left without a CO-OP.
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