And then there were 10. Of the 23 health insurance co-ops set up through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), 13 have now failed.
The latest closure comes in Ohio, where the state department of insurance announced plans Thursday to liquidate InHealth Mutual.
"Our examination of the company's financials made it clear that the company's losses would prevent it from paying future claims should its operations continue," Mary Taylor, the Ohio director of insurance and the state's lieutenant governor, said in a statement. "Under Ohio law, we acted with certainty to protect the consumers."
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The 22,000 Ohioans who had insurance through InHealth will now have to find coverage elsewhere.
The loss of insurance will allow them to sign up for another plan through the PPACA marketplace outside of the open enrollment period.
"We will work with InHealth and the state to provide consumers with the information they need to stay covered," Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told The Hill. "While we expect the number of issuers to fluctuate from year-to-year, consumer choice remains strong and new consumers in Ohio can still select from one of the state's 16 other issuers on the Marketplace."
Republicans have seized on the failure of most of the Obamacare co-ops as evidence of what they say are the health law's unfixable flaws.
Democrats and co-op supporters have accused Republicans of torpedoing the co-op program by slashing the "risk corridor" payments intended to help insurers offset the initial, anticipated losses of covering members with pre-existing conditions. A co-op in Oregon that closed earlier this year is suing over the reduction in payments.
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