Jackson Health System sells troubled Medicaid plan

Jackson Health System's board agreed Wednesday to negotiate the sale of its failing Medicaid insurance business to Simply Healthcare, a new insurer whose main investor is a close friend of Jackson CEO Carlos Migoya. Migoya told the board he was friends with several Simply shareholders, but it was the only company that had offered any money to take over the 12,000 Medicaid recipients in the JMH Health Plan, which consists of insurance HMOs offered by the system. The Medicaid portion consists of many high-risk patients that caused plan losses of $14.3 million so far this calendar year. Under the proposed deal, Simply will pay Jackson up to $2.5 million and absolve Jackson of a potential $3 million more in losses. Until Simply came along, Jackson planned to abandon the Medicaid business without any payment.