The White House today issued a report describing the progress 10 states have made in establishing Health Insurance Exchanges. Recall that under 2010’s federal health reform law, every state is tasked with establishing an insurance exchange—a sort of online purchasing portal for individual and small group (and later, large group) health insurance. States are given freedom to design their respective exchanges, within broad parameters set by the law and its regulatory coattails. If a state fails to act (or acts too slowly) the federal government is permitted to operate an exchange for it.
Despite millions of taxpayer dollars doled out to states to help them jumpstart their exchanges, many states are lagging well behind—typically for political reasons—in efforts to create exchanges. The federal government has set early 2013 as the deadline for states to demonstrate adequate progress on their respective exchanges, to avoid federal intervention. Interestingly, it is the threat of federal intervention that is prompting some recalcitrant states to get the exchange wagon moving.
Access the White House’s report by clicking here.