Internal HHS Document: "Hospitality Health CO-OP" incorporated in Delaware--Search of Delaware site shows CO-OP must have a different name
We previously reported that Hospitality Health CO-OP, an awardee of a $66 million low interest federal grant was not registered with the state of Nevada, nor could we find it registered in any state.
But an internal HHS document obtained by Forbes blogger Avik Roy sheds some light on the issue.
Avik Roy of the Apothecary blog at Forbes.com, obtained an internal Health and Human Services(HHS) document that explains why "Hospitality Health CO-OP" cannot be found on the Nevada Secretary of State's only entity registry:
Q: Hospitality Health CO-OP is incorporated in Delaware but intends to
operate in Nevada. Is that allowed and does this meet the statutory
requirements?A. Yes. Like all other health insurance issuers, a CO-OP may be
incorporated in a different State, provided that it meets the requirements
of State law in the State in which the product is sold. A CO-OP must be
licensed as a health insurance issuer in each State in which it offers a
health insurance plan, just like other issuers. Thus, Hospitality Health
will have to be licensed as a health insurance issuer in Nevada and meet
the same licensure requirements that other health insurance issuers
meet in Nevada.
A search for "Hospitality Health CO-OP" in Delaware will give you the following result:
If you broaden the search by searching for entities beginning just with "Hospitality Health" you get:
We suspect that "Hospitality Health, Ltd." is the organization that received the $66 million loan grant from HHS, and we are working to confirm this by requesting the organization's Certificate of Incorporation from the Delaware Division of Corporations.
In any case, there is apparently yet no organization registered under the name "Hospitality Health CO-OP."
In the interests of transparency, HHS should have given the real name of the organization and made public the fact of Hospitality Health's Delaware incorporation.