Wednesday, August 26, 2015

No Crystal Ball Necessary

Another co-op bites the dust. This time it's Dirty Harry's home state of Nevada where operations will cease at the end of 2015. Just a short 15 months ago Bloomberg touted the "successful" start of the Nevada Co-Op in this article and referenced how they had the lowest rates in Las Vegas.

Fast forward to today's press release. Here's a few quotes from the company, one of it's board members, and the co-op CEO. Definitely not the success they envisioned.

“It is with deep sadness that based on challenging market conditions, the Board made a painful decision to wind down operations of the Nevada co-op at the end of this year.”

“Rather than spending resources on next year’s uncertain market, we would rather make sure we protect our current members. This is all about providing the most affordable, effective health insurance and service possible.”

“With a second year of high claims costs and limited opportunities for new investment, it has become clear that the amount of growth required to provide quality care at reasonable rates will be unlikely in the next plan year.”

The odds makers really missed the mark on this one. With enrollment of only 14,000 the company still lost $15,000,000 since it began enrollment in 2014. Not to mention the $66,000,000 they received from the federal government to get started.

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