Governor of the state, Dennis Daugaard, has announced that it will not be operating its own marketplace.
The governor of South Dakota, Denis Daugaard, has now announced that the state will not be establishing and operating its own health insurance exchange, as per the heath care reform requirements, and will therefore be deferring the operation and cost of that marketplace to the federal government.
The law requires that each state have an exchange and that it will be federally run if the state defers.
These health insurance exchanges are marketplaces that provide individuals, families, and small businesses with a place in which they can shop from among the various plans that meet the minimum coverage standard. They will be able to learn about and compare various plans from different insurers within their states.
States that opt out of running their own health insurance marketplaces allow them to be federally operated.
Governor Daugaard has announced that South Dakota will be joining states that have opted not to establish and operate their own health insurance exchanges. Fewer than half of the states have made this same decision.
Daugaard explained in a written statement that “After extensive research and analysis, it has become very apparent that operating our own exchange will simply not work for South Dakota.” The state waited to make its choice until the Supreme Court had made its ruling in June. Once the law was upheld by the top court in the country, it was decided by Daugaard that South Dakota would not be willing to implement any of the elements of the healthcare law until the November election had passed.
This decision was made in case a new president and new Congress would result from the election and that the health insurance law would be overturned by them. There is a November 16 deadline for the states to let the federal government know whether or not the exchange would be self run or federally operated. The governor has decided ahead of that deadline, saying that the annual costs of operating the marketplace from the state would be cost prohibitive. His estimates were between $6.3 million and $7.7 million per year.
