Thursday, March 22, 2012

National- Even Reluctant States Design Health Insurance Exchanges

Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDonnell wants the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the 2010 health-care overhaul. That hasn’t stopped him from taking $1 million from the federal government to uphold one of the law’s top provisions. Virginia is using the money to help design a statewide market, or exchange, where uninsured people and small businesses can buy health coverage, starting in 2014.

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U.S. officials haven’t disclosed rules for the federal exchange, raising the prospect that it might not be ready in time. That would make the states’ job even tougher, as they need to get tax and immigration data from Washington to identify who’s eligible for policies and whether they qualify for subsidies.
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States are better off complying with the health-care law instead of losing their power to regulate health services for millions of their residents, says former Tennessee Democratic Governor Philip Bredesen.

That’s not the sentiment in Louisiana, whose officials view the overhaul as unconstitutional and “just bad public policy” because it adds bureaucracy and doesn’t do enough to control health-care costs, says Bruce Greenstein, secretary of the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals. The state declined to start planning an exchange.

Arkansas also is sitting out the process because of disagreements between its Republican-controlled legislature and Democratic Governor Mike Beebe. Beebe won a $7.7 million federal grant last month to develop technology links between his existing Medicaid program and the exchange the federal government will run in the state.

Colorado, with the same partisan split between its governor and legislature, opted to strike a compromise and pass a law authorizing an exchange. The state has received $19 million in federal money so far and is weighing bids from 12 vendors to build the system.


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-22/even-reluctant-states-design-health-insurance-exchanges
Hat Tip: Bloomberg BusinessWeek

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