The founder of the Vermont Health CO-OP is stepping down as board chair as part of an effort to convince skeptical state regulators to reconsider a recent decision denying the CO-OP a license to sell insurance.
Mitchell Fleischer, the CEO of private insurance and investment firm Fleischer Jacobs Group, says he’s ceding his position to minimize distractions as the federally funded CO-OP tries to bounce back from a scalding decision issued by the Department of Financial Regulation last month that accused the fledgling CO-OP of mismanagement and financial instability.
In that decision, DFR commissioner Susan Donegan rejected the CO-OP’s application to sell insurance on the federally mandated health care exchange set to launch in January. Using federal funds allocated by “Obamacare,” the CO-OP would offer a member-owned alternative to the only two companies currently licensed to sell insurance on the exchange: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and MVP.
For now, those plans are on hold. Donegan has said the CO-OP has two choices — submit a new application for licensure, or appeal DFR’s decision to the Vermont Supreme Court. Neither could realistically happen quickly enough to let the CO-OP join the health care exchange this year. So the CO-OP’s leaders are banking on a third approach: convince Donegan to reopen her decision.
But the CO-OP needs to make significant changes to have any chance of winning over Donegan. The questions CEO Christine Oliver and Fleischer (pictured) found themselves asking themselves, Fleischer says, boiled down to: “What can we fix? … And can we get all of this done in the next month?”
Fleischer’s resignation — which came officially on June 13 — is part of that plan.
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