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Insurance Companies Step In With Coverage for 19 Ohio Counties that Feared They'd be Without It

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OHIO DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE

About 11,000 people in 19 counties who were facing the prospect of having no health insurance provider next year are now getting some options.

The Ohio Department of Insurance has been working with Buckeye Health Plan, CareSource, Molina, Medical Mutual and Paramount. Now those five insurers have agreed to be insurance options for Ohioans in 19 of 20 Ohio counties insured under the federal health care program.

There is still one county, Paulding, that is without a single insurance provider under the exchange.

The state says it is still working with insurers to get at least one company to provide coverage to residents in the Northwest Ohio county. Over the last year, several major insurance companies pulled out of the exchange, leaving people enrolled in those counties without a single insurance company from which to choose.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.