Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed several health care reform bills this week, including a piece of legislation that begins to set up a Web-based insurance exchange. This exchange, once completed, will allow consumers in California to comparison shop for insurance coverage. California is the first state to take steps to put an insurance exchange marketplace together since the new health reform laws were enacted. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
Health insurance is one of the things that many Americans worry about. There are a lot of Americans who have no health insurance at all, who worry about the financial difficulties they would face if they, or if someone in their family, has a health problem that requires a long hospital stay. Other Americans worry about losing their health insurance if they lose their job. Everyone has concerns about health insurance companies refusing to cover the cost of needed health care. The Affordable Care Act is a series of reforms that are designed to assist consumers in finding, and keeping, health insurance.
Schwarzenegger feels that in order for this reform to succeed, that it is up to the states to make it work. The laws he signed will allow California to begin working on a way to provide affordable and quality health care insurance to California consumers. The health insurance exchange marketplaces, once put in place, are designed to give consumers a wider range of options when it comes to health insurance. It is also supposed to drive down the costs of health insurance, and make it more affordable for low and middle income Californians, as well as small business owners. According to Schwarzenegger, the cost of setting up the exchange would be funded by the federal government.
As with all new laws, there are critics. The California Chamber of Commerce believes that the cost of setting up the insurance exchange will be over $1 billion dollars each year. I’m not sure if they are considering the federal funding, or if they are not, when they came to that conclusion. Many insurance companies feel that the new health care reform will negatively affect their profits. Meg Whitman, who is among the people who are running for governor in the upcoming elections, wants to repeal the law, as does Carly Fiorina, who is running for Senate. It is worth noting that twenty states have signed a lawsuit that they hope will block the federal health care reform. California is not one of those states.
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