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Setting up a federal-based exchange would cost Ohio an estimated $20 million, while creating a state-based exchange would cost $63 million, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor said.
An estimated 685,000 Ohioans will pick their health plan and receive premium and cost-sharing subsidies through the exchanges, which must be in place by the beginning of 2014. States have some latitude in how they set up their own exchanges, and the federal government will step in and create exchanges in those states that don’t create their own. A hybrid exchange jointly run by the federal and state government is another possibility.
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Taylor, who doubles as director of the state Department of Insurance, said it has been difficult thus far to make a decision on which way Ohio should go in the absence of more information from the federal government of what a federal health exchange might look like.
“Setting up and operating an exchange, whether it’s a federal-based exchange or a state-based exchange, is expensive,” Taylor told a crowd of a few hundred gathered Wednesday at a forum on health-care exchanges organized by the nonpartisan Health Policy Institute of Ohio.
Taylor cited a study that estimated Ohio’s annual operating costs for an exchange — excluding information technology costs — would be $19 million to $34 million annually. Information technology costs are estimated to be $1.6 million for a federally run exchange, and up to $9 million for a state-based or state-run exchange.
Hat tip: Middletown Journal
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