Governor Rick Snyder (Michigan) has unveiled his plans for implementing one of the primary healthcare reforms from the Obama administration – the statewide affordable health insurance marketplace for consumers – by proposing legislation that would turn the task over to a non-profit organization.
Snyder made the announcement in his first major speech about healthcare, in which he made a call for the forming of the MIHealth Marketplace. This would be a non-profit group that would supervise the sale of health insurance to small businesses struggling to be able to offer coverage to their employees, or uninsured adults, beginning in 2014.
Businesses and consumers that use these statewide insurance exchanges to purchase coverage will be eligible for federal tax credits.
The reforms made by the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act require each state to come up with a health insurance exchange by January 1,2013, and it must be up and running by the same time in 2014. That said, there are options available to the states, allowing them to choose among making these exchanges a new public entity, a non-profit organization, or a part of a state agency.
States that choose not to offer the programs will be served by marketplaces run by the federal government.
Snyder made it clear that he wants the residents of Michigan overseeing the options for coverage, and not the federal government, because he wants to “ensure it does not become a big, bloated bureaucracy.”
Snyder’s speech was held at a Grand Rapids health clinic that was federally funded. There, he outlined several new health initiatives that he was proposing within his plan.
