In the end, only 23 co-ops received funding. “They don’t want to do anything to make the situation in the states better,” Yarmuth says. “Instead, they’re actively undermining the programs.”
Nobody gave the co-ops much of a chance. They had to put together plans overnight, win competitive pricing from providers, and get word of their existence out without spending any of the government loan money.
Still, many were run by real pros with decades of experience. Take Dr. Martin Hickey, CEO of the New Mexico Health Connections co-op and a former executive with Cigna and Blue Cross. “This wasn’t just a do-gooder thing,” he says. “This was people who understood business, understood insurance and what it was going to take to make this really work. Hope is not a strategy.”
Soon, co-ops were offering the lowest premiums in a third of the states in which they operated. And even when they weren’t the lowest, they were providing enough competition to drive down all premiums by 8 percent.