HELENA, Mont. (AP) – Montana’s health care co-op, one of America’s few remaining alternatives to traditional health insurance, will resume accepting new enrollees Sunday after it voluntarily pulled itself from the state’s insurance marketplace in December.
The insurer took the nine-month hiatus from enrolling new members in the exchange created by President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act to boost its financial reserves and keep it from the same fate that has befallen failed co-ops across the country.
The program was among about two dozen privately run health co-ops that sprang up across the country following the 2010 passage of the Obama administration’s health care law. They provided medical coverage with premiums far lower than plans offered by traditional health insurance companies.
But within two years, half of the programs quietly folded – undermined by political attacks, financial miscalculations and the volatility of the health insurance marketplace. Just four remain – in Montana, Wisconsin, Maine and New Mexico. Earlier this week, Massachusetts officials placed the Minuteman Health co-op in receivership.
The Montana Health Co-op, which also serves customers in neighboring Idaho, temporarily suspended new enrollment in Montana because of worries that it was overextending its resources and heading toward insolvency.