Texas says NO to setting up its own health care exchange
By: Peggy Venable
Today was to have been the deadline for states to decide if they will set up health insurance exchanges as part of the Obama administration’s health reform law. However, the Obama administration, in response to a request from the Republican Governors Association (RGA), has once again extended the deadline. Now the deadline is Dec 14.
The decision in Texas was made last June – and apparently hasn’t changed. The exchanges, which will offer more affordable health insurance plans for both individuals and small businesses as prescribed under the Affordable Care Act, are supposed to open for enrollment on Oct. 1, 2013. More than 20 million people are expected to use them.
As of this morning, by our count, 18 states are rejecting creating an exchange. We still have a few states that we’ve not heard from.
Rejected states: AL, AK, FL, GA, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MO, NE, NH, OH, SC, SD, TX, VA, WI and WY
We don’t know about: AZ, ID, MT, NJ, ND, OK, PA and TN.
Since HHS extended the deadline to Dec. 14th, we might not hear from those states today, but we’ll continue to watch and track the issue closely. So stay tuned.
q Comments
blog comments powered by Disqus