Arizona health insurance co-op to close shop Dec. 31
PHOENIX (AP) — Executives with Arizona's nonprofit health insurance co-op said Tuesday that they have failed to come up with additional financial backing and the insurer plans to shut down all operations Dec. 31.
The decision comes nearly a month after the state Department of Insurance suspended its right to sell new policies or renew current ones and placed it under formal supervision.
Federal officials also pulled its policies from the health insurance marketplace website late last month.
The nonprofit was one of 23 co-ops created under the Affordable Care Act to provide competition to for-profit insurers, but many have struggled and more than half have now failed or will close by the end of the year.
"The two biggest issues that we can't overcome with information (are) people's rates are going to go up and they aren't going to have the same access to Maricopa Integrated Health System, because 33,000 of our customers signed up for that," Zumtobel said.