Tag: State Health Insurance Exchange

Health insurance exchanges in Minnesota facing tight deadlines

H. Cutner
Health Insurance Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton

With the start of the legislative session, lawmakers are diving right in to the healthcare overhaul. This week, Minnesota saw the beginning of a fresh legislative session, and Republican and DFL lawmakers have jumped directly into the announcement of a new bill that would implement a central element of the federal healthcare reforms within the state, namely the health insurance exchange. This virtual marketplace would provide an online arena in which residents can shop for coverage. Up to a million residents of Minnesota, in addition to small businesses, will be…

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Health insurance exchanges for 20 states have received their approval

Julie Campbell
Vermont Health insurance exchanges

Another eight states have now received the all clear in the form of a conditional federal approval. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has just announced that an additional eight states have now received their conditional approval for their state based health insurance exchanges, bringing the total number in the country up to 20. These approvals have been coming through since last week and allow those states to begin moving forward. Among the newest additions to the approved list for their health insurance exchanges are Hawaii, Utah,…

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Health insurance exchange plan in Minnesota costlier than expected

Health Insurance Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton

The state’s bill for the program at the heart of the healthcare reforms is higher than predicted. According to Governor Mark Dayton’s administration, the cost of operating the health insurance exchange in the year 2015 is now predicted to be around $54 million. Previous forecasts had placed the expense at between $30 million and $40 million for the state. That said, Minnesota will not need to obtain those funds until that year, when the state health insurance exchanges are required to be able to sustain themselves, financially. The same projections…

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Health insurance exchange in Illinois to start moving ahead

Health insurance Illinois Governor Pat Quinn

The state has decided that it will be implementing the program for its residents. Even before hearing the results of the presidential election, Illinois decided that the health insurance exchange would go full steam ahead according to the federal healthcare overhaul’s regulations. Governor Pat Quinn released the intentions to move forward before knowing who the next president would be. Officials from the state are already reviewing five different bids for developing and building the health insurance exchange for the state in order to be able to maintain control over that…

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Health insurance exchange participation by states encouraged by Obama

Julie Campbell
Health insurance care reform confusion debate

The President and his administration are working to change the remind of reluctant states. Throughout the week, the Obama administration has been working to try to encourage the states that have been reluctant to take control of their own health insurance exchange marketplaces to move forward as time starts to run low before the deadline for acting on this important provision of the healthcare reforms. This marketplace is designed to help millions of Americans to obtain affordable coverage. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will be meeting four…

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Recent research discovers new health care reform marketplaces will need significant coordination

health insurance promotion

A new study has found that the success of state insurance exchanges will depend on agencies working together. As the different states throughout the country choose whether they will be creating and running their own insurance exchanges according to the changes required by the health care reform under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or whether they will have the federal government do it for them, the results of new research from the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) and Georgetown University has shown that managing and certifying the plans within…

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Report shows interest increasing for individual and group health insurance exchanges

Julie Campbell

JD Power and Associates has released its 2012 U.S. Member Health Plan Study and it revealed that in the face of the impact of the reforms to healthcare, almost four in every ten members of an employee sponsored health plan have said that they would use a health insurance exchange to shop for their insurance coverage if the opportunity was available. This is now the sixth study of its kind, which measures the satisfaction among the members of 141 different health plans within 17 American regions by looking into seven…

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Some states making major progress on insurance exchanges, while others lag behind

Throughout the U.S., progress on setting up health insurance exchanges is accelerating. As of December, 2011, 13 states had fully functional exchange programs. Several other states have legislations pending that would allow for the building of the exchanges. While many states oppose the overarching Affordable Care Act, only Arkansas and Louisiana have chosen not to build insurance exchanges of any kind. According to the law, all states must have an operational exchange program in place by 2014. As of now, 20 states are making major progress toward establishing exchanges. The…

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The criteria that states must meet for health insurance exchange marketplace

Julie Campbell

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding 13 states as well as Washington D.C. a total of $185 million to help to fund the planning and creation of the state-based insurance exchanges that are required by the federal healthcare overhaul. Each will receive a different amount as their portion of the total. For example, California will receive $38 million in order to create its exchange. The governors of the recipient states received a letter from secretary Kathleen Sebelius of HHS, which described the various options and resources…

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Government hopes to see action on state insurance exchanges soon despite ambiguous guidelines

S.Vagus

The federal government is hoping that states make moves on insurance exchanges soon. Several guidelines have been released by the government to lay the framework for how states should go about building and operating the exchanges, but few have been quick to take up action. Federal law requires that states must have a working exchange program established by 2014 or the control of this program will default to the federal government. The director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,…

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