There are some states that have made a great deal of progress on setting up their health insurance exchange. There also are other states that have flat out refused to initiate the creation of one. Wyoming is undecided. It is taking a “go-slow” approach.
Part of the Affordable Care Act includes the requirement that all states must set up a health insurance exchange. Each state must submit plans about exactly how their exchange will operate to the federal government for approval by January 1, 2013. There is another deadline for states that do not want to create and operate their own exchange. Those states must certify that they will participate in an exchange that is run, in part, by the federal government by November 16, 2012.
The Governor of Wyoming, Matt Mead, who is a Republican, has not made the decision about what Wyoming is intending to do about its health insurance exchange. In March of 2012, the steering committee stopped working on its extensive study of health exchanges. They were waiting to see the results of the Supreme Court’s decision about the Affordable Care Act.
The ruling has been made, and the Supreme Court decided that that Affordable Care Act was constitutional. Senator Bill Landen, who is a Republican, says that Wyoming’s next step is to gather more information about health insurance exchanges, and to use that information to make decisions about Wyoming’s health insurance exchange.
However, at this time, there are no plans for the committee to meet. What does this mean for Wyoming?
According to Senator Bill Landen, who is the co-chairman of the Wyoming Health Insurance Exchange Steering Committee, had this to say about it:
“I don’t really anticipate that many of the deadlines will be hard and fast.” He went on to say “My nature going forward is going to be cautionary. I’m going to work as hard as I can to make sure whatever decision will help the citizens of this state, regardless of the federal mandates”.
He feels that the worst case scenario would be that the federal authorities would set up a health insurance for Wyoming, and then, eventually, would let the state take it over.
Anne Ladd is the chief executive officer of the Wyoming Business Coalition on Health. She said that Wyoming will have a lot of catching up to do. She said:
“It’s difficult to predict what might happen in Wyoming. My guess is that we will probably end up with a state and federal partnership over the course of the next 12 to 36 months”.
It remains to be seen what will really happen in regards to Wyoming’s health insurance exchange. It appears that at least some Wyoming legislators want to wait to see how much of the Affordable Care Act remains after the 2012 Presidential election before they create a health insurance exchange.
Image by Colin Grey on Flickr