More than $860 million of the proposed $1 billion would go to building a federal exchange, which the Obama administration will set up for states that don’t build marketplaces on their own. The agency needs more implementation funds, officials explained at a Monday press briefing, because the $1 billion appropriated within the law is probably going to run out by the end of the year.
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There’s a big question, though, about where those funds are - if they do, indeed, exist. Politico’s J. Lester Feder broke the news last year that while the law allows for “essentially unlimited” funding for states to set up exchanges, it did not appropriate funds for the federal government to do the same. All it provided was a general, $1 billion implementation fund - that’s the one that HHS expects to exhaust by the end of the year.
That federal marketplace will near certainly be needed, as large states like Florida and Louisiana have firmly decided not to set up their own exchanges. Even some states that want to move forward are running into trouble: Just Monday, state legislators in Oregon blocked its marketplace from moving forward.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/health-insurance-exchanges-in-limbo/2012/02/14/gIQACQfODR_blog.html
Hat tip: Washington Post/ Wongblog/ Sarah Kiff
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