Ohio Selects Non-Profit Medical Mutual to Admin High Risk Fund

March 6, 2017

A non-profit organization, Medical Mutual of Ohio, will operate the state’s temporary high risk pool, a program created through the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of March 2010, according to an announcement by the Ohio Department of Insurance.

The pool will provide individuals with pre-existing medical conditions who have no insurance the opportunity to purchase affordable coverage. The state will have approximately $152 million for the program from the federal government.

The department of insurance, Medical Mutual, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human (HHS) services will collaborate on the logistics of the program and final approval from HHS will be necessary for the final low-costs offerings to be validated.

Medical Mutual estimates that with the federal funding and its disposal, it has the wherewithal to insure more than 5,000 Ohio citizens for the duration of the program with those enrolled paying a standard rate premium for their coverage. No state funds will be used to provide the high risk insurance.

The overhaul of the $2.5 trillion health care system in the United States represented by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the most dramatic change to health policy in this country in four decades.

As a consequence of the legislation, approximately 32 million Americans who currently have no insurance will be covered and numerous exclusionary insurance industry practices have been outlawed.