16 Obamacare Co-Ops Collapsed. Here’s How the Rest Are Faring.

Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97

Since Obamacare’s rollout in the fall of 2013, 16 co-ops that launched with money from the federal government have collapsed.

The co-ops, or consumer operated and oriented plans, were started under the Affordable Care Act as a way to boost competition among insurers and expand the number of health insurance companies available to consumers living in rural areas.

Now, just seven co-ops — Wisconsin’s Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative; Maryland’s Evergreen Health Cooperative; Maine Community Health Options; Massachusetts’ Minuteman Health; Montana Health Cooperative; New Mexico Health Connections; and Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey — remain.

Despite the grim financial footing from previous years, health care experts agree that it’s likely some — though not all — co-ops may remain standing for at least a few more years.

“I definitely think there are some co-ops that have seemed to have relative success in the market,” Caroline Pearson, a senior vice president at Avalere Health, told The Daily Signal. “I think we will have some surviving co-ops a couple years from now, but I can’t promise we won’t have a handful more that may fail over time.”

But for the seven co-ops left to survive, Pearson warned they will have to increase the cost of their premiums, especially since many of the nonprofit insurers kept the costs down during the beginning years of Obamacare’s implementation to attract customers.

“The big issue for the co-ops is getting the pricing right,” she said. “They really need to make sure they’re accurately assessing the medical risk of the exchange enrollees and pricing in such a way they can cover those costs.”

“I think there was very aggressive pricing strategies by many carriers in the first few years of the exchanges to try to win enrollment, and that’s really resulted in big losses for most of them,” Pearson continued.