States and Healthcare Exchanges

Good Evening Everyone!  I will try to get back to the posts about interviews tomorrow.  I wanted to take a second out to touch on the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA) again and an interesting article I stumbled on over at www.lifehealthpro.com.  The article is about the Healthcare Exchanges that are being put together in preparation of Jan. 1, 2014, the date on which every American will be required to have health insurance.  The Exchanges will be there for those that do not have employer offered healthcare or for those that think their employer’s healthcare is not affordable.

This article is interesting because it discusses some of the differences across states.  Under the PPACA, states have three options:  They can run their own state-run healthcare exchange, they can enter a shared-responsibility partnership with the Federal Government, or they can allow the Federal Government to take full responsibility.  At this time, 17 states (plus Washington D.C.) have decided to set up state-run exchanges.  There are 20 states that are asking for the Federal Government to take full responsibility; plus 5 that are forming a shared partnership.  The remaining states, including Pennsylvania, are waiting for questions to be answered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  According to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, states are required to declare their intent to run their own exchange by Dec. 14, 2012 or they will forfeit that responsibility to the Federal Government.

 One of the challenging items for Governors and state governments in their decision process is that the regulations governing the operation of the exchanges are incomplete.  Joel Ario, the former director of the Office of Insurance Exchanges at the HSS is concerned that the Federal Government may not be able to meet the PPACA deadlines for setting up the exchanges.

Link to article:  http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2012/11/16/who-will-start-a-ppaca-exchange

---