Michael F. Neidorff, 79, Dies; His Company Was an Obamacare Stalwart

When condition officers and federal government regulators were being concerned that some counties in the United States would be left with out a carrier keen to sell insurance coverage under the Very affordable Treatment Act, Mr. Neidorff agreed to give protection in some of all those markets, stated Jesse Hunter, a previous chief method officer for Centene, and “there was never any hesitation.”

“We want to assist out the place we are equipped to,” Mr. Neidorff advised The New York Occasions in 2017.

He was born in 1942 in Altoona, Pa., to A. Harvey Neidorff, a health practitioner, and Shirley Rubin Neidorff, a nurse. He experienced deemed likely into medicine but made the decision alternatively to key in political science at Trinity University in San Antonio. He later gained a master’s degree from St. Francis College or university in Brooklyn.

He is survived by his spouse, Noémi his brother, Robert his sister, Susan Neidorff Reinglass and his son, Peter. His daughter, Monica Neidorff, died in 2021.

Mr. Neidorff had labored for a device of UnitedHealthcare when he was recruited to be chief government of Coordinated Treatment, the tiny managed-treatment firm that would become Centene. “It was apparent they needed a comprehensive modify,” claimed Robert Ditmore, a longtime Centene board member who was concerned in the enterprise.

Mr. Neidorff expanded aggressively into the Medicaid current market, despite problems about no matter if it would be a successful venture. “I had inquiries about Medicaid is it going to work?” Mr. Ditmore said. But, he additional, Mr. Neidorff persuaded him: “It was definitely a significant market place, so we explained let’s go for it.”

Mr. Neidorff took the organization general public in 2001. In 2016, he obtained a California insurer, Wellbeing Web, which provided private programs for one more federal government application, Medicare.

When the Reasonably priced Care Act furnished an opportunity to sell small-value non-public insurance policy by the point out markets established up by the federal authorities, Mr. Ditmore recalled, Mr. Neidorff was eager to turn out to be a important participant, despite uncertainty about how insurers ought to price their insurance policies in the new industry. “He saved pushing for it,” Mr. Ditmore claimed. “He was a bulldog with a bone in his mouth.”