Twenty-three co-op plans, funded with $2.4 billion in government loans, opened enrollment in 2013. By the end of 2015, 12 plans had failed, leaving $1.3 billion in delinquent loans, more than 700,000 people in 13 states scrambling for coverage, and hospitals and doctors with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses uncovered by the assets of the failed co-ops.
This result is hardly surprising. The people running the co-ops had no experience running an insurance company – co-ops were forbidden to have anyone affiliated with insurers on their boards. Their premiums were too low and their benefits too high. The failed co-ops went on to lose $376 million in 2014 and more than a billion in 2015. Only one co-op turned a profit in 2014, and all lost money in 2015.
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