Health needs exist for CoOportunity

To the editor:

It is really disappointing to hear that CoOportunity is probably not going to survive. I feel sorry for the individuals that finally had health insurance and are now in limbo. CoOportunity is failing because they got more customers than they expected and because many of the customers had pre-existing conditions and probably used a lot of health care.

If you couldn't afford health insurance or health care and you finally got insurance, it would make sense that you would start addressing your health care needs. The fact that so many people purchased insurance from CoOportunity shows that there is a need for this insurance.

I think the biggest contributor to the demise of CoOportunity was the fact that Wellmark, a company with 80 percent of the health insurance business in Iowa, was not required to participate in the health care exchange. This was wrong. Wellmark got to cherry pick and keep the healthier people while the people with more health care needs went to get affordable insurance on the exchange. Other states had the wisdom to require all health insurance companies with 30 percent or more of the business in their state to participate in the Affordable Care Act health care exchange. Why didn't we do the same?

Lynn Gallagher

Solon