In addition to my responsibilities intimacy, i serve in leadership roles on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. And as a member of the federal advisory committee. I spent most of my career and insurance regular can, previously serving in kentucky. I have a strong affinity for the statebased oversight. My testimony today will highlight the history of tennessee coops. My comments will focus on events this year that ultimately led to on october 14. They were awarded loans and advances to launch the company. In first offered plans 2014 with plans and five of disease eight Service Areas of tennessees eighth Service Areas. Options,mited network the company memberships and rate challenges were compounded by a population that was love healthy and sought less healthy and sought more services. The loss was 22 million in 2015. Enrollment grew financially, during open enrollment. And are the same period, medical costs continued to increase. The department and cha quickly recognize
To the other plan raise costs . Every plan lost. That is what i understand. They had to underbid. Some survived and some did not. We did not have any company accurately. And so some of our larger established companies could withstand losses, but the coop did not have resources available. What would you say are the top reasons, 1200 the 23 failed . Internal problems, too. Do you have insight into the top reasons why they fail . I do not know what happened in the other groups surprising payments a set of receivables. Why dont we just suggest that there were no mistakes made by management in coops , but if you look across the marketplace where you see is that this was a competitive marketplace and Insurance Companies priced aggressively. The difference was they did not have other business and surplus, and their capitol was continuously reduced and whenwhen the commissioner talks about learning to sail in a hurricane that is especially apt to a situation where we were prohibited from build
Corridors and they were confident they would get the must be back because i said what are you presuming for the number of healthy subscrapers under age 30 . Well, a third of our subscribers will be young and healthy. And i said you know what are you guys smoking . Thats not going to happen. Whats going to happen when it community . Well, well lose money and the government will make it up to us. This was set up for failure from day one. The Insurance Companies knew it was going to fail. They released a product that was underpriced that could not make money. So mr. Morrison, when you talk about it being not capitalized properly, would you agree with me if the coops made money we wouldnt be having this discussion . You dont need more capital if you start with x and you make money. Isnt that just fundamental common sense . I would agree with that. So and all the companies lost money. So were here because obamacare was set up for failure. It was set up to encourage low premiums, to deceive
Somehow not covered by the insurance. We want those folks to be covered. The Insurance Program was to cover the cost in the early years. We know there may have been pent up demand. Day, it isnd of the just to capitalize the business. Dr. Cohen i think it is to keep premiums stable for consumers. You thought earlier in the year that you would be able to move payments and you found out in october that you could not. What is the reason for that . Dr. Cohen it is the math formula. It is the way the data came in from the issuers. That is the way the math worked out. 12 ,re able to pay at which is the dollars coming in, dollars going out. That is the way we are moving forward for this program. We said that we would take from last years collections and pay back. Thank you. I yield back. I now recognize mr. Yarmouth. Thank you very much. Outelp the doctor off a little bit on the background of the coops. One of the things we faced when drafting legislation was that, in certain states, the avail
These options today. Thank you, i look forward to your questions. Let me start was in questions. Many factors contributed to the failure of the coops. Lower than higher expected enrollments, restrictions on investors, risk adjustment formulas, lots of those. Let me start off. What are the top reasons the coop failed in your state . Thank you for your question. Our coop had challenges from inception, in that as the commissioner mentioned, going into a state without Provider Networks cause the company to have to lease those. There were a ministry of cost that were new to the startup, that any startup would have. But in 2014, we had disastrously low enrollment. Truly come at most, 1000 people signed up for the coop plan. Mostly because the rates were somewhat higher than the leader and the wellestablished companies in tennessee. Overcoming those challenges became extremely difficult. And is why we saw significant rate increases for 2015 and beyond because of the enrollees across the marke