Florida may not be running its own mandatory statewide insurance exchanges.
The refusal of Governor Rick Scott to implement Florida’s federally mandated insurance exchanges as per the health care reforms that have just recently received the nod from the Supreme Court, means that nothing has been prepared for the January 2014 deadline.
This makes it likely that the federal government will need to control the marketplace for that state.
This control means that the state will not be able to choose how its exchanges operate, what the required benefits that insurers will have to offer, and who will be permitted to actually sell the policies. Essentially, it puts the federal government in the driver’s seat for the heart of the health care reforms in Florida.
Though Governor Scott has been using a great deal of his time making statements in opposition to the healthcare laws that were upheld by the Supreme Court, over the last week, leaders in the Florida Senate have been furiously striving to develop a plan for the implementation of the mandatory exchanges, as well as to broaden the reach of Medicaid – two efforts that Scott has outright refused for the state.
However, lawmakers in Florida haven’t made any efforts to comply with the health care reforms.
There has been nothing accomplished for authorizing this executive branch for creating and implementing the insurance marketplaces as required by the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Though the exchanges won’t need to be in operation until January 2014, the states all face a deadline of November 16, 2012 (after having been provided a blueprint that they can follow, by the federal government in May), for submitting a comprehensive outline to the federal government, which details the strategy that they will take for the development and execution of the marketplaces.
Residents of Florida are now left only with confusion regarding what their state is currently doing, and where it is headed in the future for their medical coverage. It suggests that the federal government will take over control by default, as the state will not have submitted the necessary plan by the November deadline.
