All States are required to set up their own health insurance exchange by January of 2014. This is one of the laws that is a part of the Affordable Care Act. This means that we are going to be hearing a lot about the status of these exchanges as we get closer to the deadline.
I’ve been paying attention to the news regarding the health insurance exchanges. As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a master list anywhere that gives details about what each State is doing in regards to the health insurance exchanges. I think part of that reason is because there are a lot of States that are still trying to figure it all out.
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.
So far, we know that California started working on their health insurance exchange sometime in October of 2010. Recently, the Vermont Senate approved the health reform bill. As far as I can tell, the House of Representatives in Vermont would need to approve it as well, before work on the health insurance exchange could be started. So, for now, I’m considering Vermont as “a work in progress”. This week, legislators in Minnesota voted to ban the creation of a health insurance exchange. That State will not be creating one as part of the Affordable Care Act.
This week, the Senate in Colorado approved a bill that would allow their State to set up a health insurance exchange. Again, before work can start on that, the bill would also need to be approved by the Colorado House of Representatives. So, I’m gonna call Colorado “a work in progress” as well.
New York has received $25 million dollars from the federal government to help them pay for the technology system that would run their health insurance exchange. New York also got a $1 million planning grant, from the federal government, to help the state plan about the best way to create their exchange.
Work has not yet begun. The New York Senate and Insurance committees are working on creating a roundtable discussion in order to figure out what to do. As far as I can tell, New York has yet to pass a bill that approves the creation of a State health insurance exchange.
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