CareSource has completed its acquisition of Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, the nonprofit health insurers announced in a news release Thursday.
Privately held CareSource, which has 2 million Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance exchange members, gains 54,000 marketplace customers in Wisconsin through the deal. Common Ground CEO Cathy Mahaffey remains as chief executive of Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative and was named CareSource market president for the Badger State.
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State and federal regulators and Common Ground members signed off on the transaction first proposed last February, according to the news release. After the acquisition, Common Ground policyholders no longer govern the company.
Common Ground had been one of three remaining member-owned cooperative health insurers supported with funding from the Affordable Care Act of 2010. These companies were intended as an alternative to for-profit and traditional nonprofit carriers, and as a political compromise for the government-run "public option" many Democrats sought when drafting the law.
But Congress significantly reduced financial support for co-ops, and they failed to gain traction in the market. Of the 23 co-ops that debuted on the exchanges in 2013, only Community Health Options in Maine and Mountain Health CO-OP in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are still in operation.
CareSource and Common Ground did not immediately responded to interview requests.
