Utah’s Arches Health Plan marks 10th co-op closure

Another gravestone has been added to the Affordable Care Act’s co-op plan cemetery. Arches Health Plan in Utah will shut down by the end of the year, the state said last week.

Arches is the 10th not-for-profit coop plan to fold this year. It blamed unexpectedly low payments from the ACA’s risk-corridors program. The health plan updated its website last week to notify members that they will have to select a new plan on the exchange for 2016 when open enrollment starts Nov. 1.

This month, the CMS said it would pay only 13% of risk-corridor payments, creating a huge shortfall for insurers that had banked on those payments to offset high claims costs.

Since that announcement, six co-op plans have said they will close by the end of 2015.

Arches had more than 45,000 members in the first quarter of this year, according to insurance filings.