It's hard to find a governor who doesn’t agree that creating an organized marketplace to help consumers and small businesses shop for health insurance is a good idea. But when it comes to implementing the state-run exchanges called for in the controversial 2010 federal health law, many GOP governors are balking.
If they opt out of building their own exchanges, they would have to hand over control of the project to the federal government — something no governor wants to do. So instead of taking a hard line on the issue, a handful of governors have recently carved out a middle ground. They’re putting off a decision until June when the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether the health law is constitutional.
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Waiting with Nebraska are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to news reports compiled by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
The big question is whether states that wait for the high court’s decision will be able to build an online insurance marketplace in time to meet federal deadlines. “It’s hard to tell,” says Joy Johnson Wilson, health policy director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “There’s a lot going on behind the scenes.”
Wilson and others report that even in states where governors are holding off, a lot of work already has been done using federal grant money. Every state has received a $1 million planning grant, and 34 states and the District of Columbia have received a total of more than $600 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to build the state exchanges.
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=635661
Hat tip: Stateline.org
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