Alternative Headline: Priority Health Expands to Wisconsin
[MM Curator Summary]: Priority Health of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, is expanding into Wisconsin by merging with Group Health Cooperative of Eau Claire.
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Priority Health — a nonprofit, provider-owned health insurer based in Grand Rapids, Michigan — is expanding into Wisconsin.
The Medicare plan issuer says it will combine with Group Health Cooperative of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, by becoming the governing member of Group Health Cooperative’s board.
Priority provides or administers health coverage for 1.3 million people in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio and is the biggest provider-sponsored health plan in the United States, with enrollees in Medicaid managed care plans, individual major medical policyholders and participants in employer-sponsored health plans as well as enrollees in Medicare plans.
Priority generated $66 million in operating income on $1.2 billion in revenue in 2022, according to its most recent public tax-exempt entity tax filing.
Group Health Cooperative was founded in 1972 and now has 61,000 enrollees. Like Priority, it has Medicaid, individual major medical and employer-sponsored health plan enrollees as well as Medicare plan enrollees.
Its most recent tax-exempt organization filing, for 2021, shows that it lost $14 million that year on $425 million in revenue.
Priority and Group Health Cooperative hope to complete their deal by the end of the year.
The other CO-OPs: Group Health Cooperative started up before the Affordable Care Act created the ill-fated Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan program, which was supposed to increase competition in the health insurance market by creating nonprofit, member-owned health insurers that were similar to Group Health Cooperative all around the country.
Federal regulators saddled the ACA CO-OPs with investment and ownership rules that crippled their ability to raise capital, and most failed or were acquired by other carriers.
CareSource of Ohio acquired Wisconsin’s CO-OP carrier, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, in January 2025.
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2025/07/29/michigan-health-insurer-moves-into-wisconsin/
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