By Peter Sullivan – 10/17/15 12:18 PM EDT
The future of an ObamaCare program that was intended to create non-profit insurers is increasingly in doubt, with several of the ventures forced to close down around the country.
On Friday, co-op insurance plans in Colorado and Oregon became the latest to call it quits, following the closure of similar plans this month in Tennessee, Kentucky and New York.
Just 15 of the original 23 co-ops remain in operation, and the administration acknowledges that more of them could fail, potentially leaving a strike against President Obama’s signature law.
“The co-op program was always kind of swimming upstream,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which does nonpartisan health analysis. “Starting an insurance company is not easy, and there’s a reason why it’s not done very often.”
Democrats created the non-profit co-ops under ObamaCare as a way to increase competition with established, for-profit insurers. Liberals rallied to the idea after they failed to secure the passage of a government-run insurance option.
But experts say the co-ops are facing a range of problems that could prove hard to overcome.