One of the aspects of the Affordable Care Act involves the creation of health insurance exchanges. It has been left up to individual states to figure out what they are going to do in order to set up these exchanges. Some states have already put together their exchange, others show interest, and some are completely against the exchanges.
Not long after the Affordable Care Act was signed, California started working on setting up the health insurance exchange for their state. Work on this began in October of 2010. California was not one of the states that was involved in any of the lawsuits that questioned the constitutionality of certain parts of the Affordable Care Act, so, perhaps it isn’t really a surprise that California was one of the first states to get started creating their state health care exchange. If I am understanding correctly, funding for the California health insurance exchange is coming from the federal government.
This week Vermont Senate approved the health reform bill in a preliminary vote. The vote was 21 to 8, and was split mostly along party lines. Part of this health care reform includes the ability to set up Vermont’s health insurance exchange. Work has not yet begun on this exchange, as the specific details of the health care reform are being decided. It also would need to be approved by the Vermont House of Representatives before it will be official. It seems to be a good start, however.
Minnesota, on the other hand, is not working on their health insurance exchange at the moment. Republicans in the Minnesota House of Representatives introduced a bill this week that would ban Minnesota from creating a state health insurance exchange that would be part of the Affordable Care Act. If Minnesota does not choose to create their state health insurance exchange on their own, the federal government will set one up for their state.
The individual state health insurance exchanges are designed to help individuals be able to find affordable health insurance for themselves, or for their families. The exchanges will also be something that small businesses, (those that have less than 100 employees), can use as a way to provide affordable health insurance for their employees. The purpose is to pool all of these people into what amounts to a group, so that the cost of health insurance can be brought down to amounts that people can actually afford to purchase.
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