Sixteen of the original 23 co-ops have withdrawn from the Affordable Care Act’s web-based exchanges, mostly recently in Oregon, Connecticut and Illinois, despite $1.7 billion in taxpayer loans to the failed plans.
Democrats pushed the co-ops, or Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, during the Obamacare debate of 2009 as a fallback to attempts to win passage of the public option — a government-run plan to compete with private companies in the new marketplace. Yet many of the co-ops had a hard time competing for market share, and in some cases the nonprofit plans appeared to underprice their products and then drown in medical claims.
Yet the 2016 Democratic Party Platform says health care is a “right, not a privilege,” so the party is doubling down instead of retreating from taxpayer-funded alternatives, highlighting the influence of primary challenger Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, who pulled presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton to the left before backing her.
“This campaign is about moving the United States toward universal health care and reducing the number of people who are uninsured or underinsured,” Mr. Sanders told the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia late Monday. “Hillary Clinton wants to see that all Americans have the right to choose a public option in their health care exchange.”
