Friday, February 15, is the final day for states to decide
on their role in setting up the health insurance marketplaces required under
the Affordable Care Act. The law gives state the choice to set up their own
marketplace, partner with the federal government, or take no action and default
to a federal government-run exchange. This is the last deadline until October, when
the marketplaces are expected to open up for enrollment.
Despite the
deadline, however, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has shown flexibility
on healthcare reform deadlines before, offering second, third, and fourth
chances for states to choose to run their own marketplace for health insurance.
Most recently, NAHAM News reported that HHS all but ignored deadlines in order
to convince more states to take a part in setting up the marketplaces (States
Will be Given Extra Time to Set Up Insurance Exchanges).
The decision on what
to do with the marketplaces rests in the hands of state legislatures and
governors, who don’t always see eye to eye. In New Jersey, for example, Politico
reported that Governor Chris Christie (R) made it clear that he’s no
fan of the healthcare law when he vetoed Democratic legislation that would have
created an exchange. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) also rejected a fully
state run exchange, but has recently said that he would sign legislation allowing
the state to retain some control over the marketplace, similar to a partnership
model.
Exchanges have
long-term implications for the success of the healthcare law, not to mention
political consequences for the governors and state legislatures that choose to
either carry out the law or sit back while the federal government takes
control.
As of now,
according to a Kaiser Family Foundation tracker, 17 states
have declared a state based exchange, 7 are planning a partnership exchange,
and the remaining 26 would default to a federal exchange.
No comments:
Post a Comment