Rules give shape to health insurance exchanges
Source: Wash. Post
The final shape for a key part of the health law — the state-based marketplaces where people will shop for insurance coverage — became clearer Monday in rules issued by the Obama administration.
Under the long-awaited rules, states will have broad flexibility to design their insurance marketplaces, which are set to begin operation in 2014. Some states are working to set up their marketplaces, called exchanges, while others have declined to move forward until the the Supreme Court makes its decision on the constitutionality of the federal health law.
Responding to thousands of comments on earlier proposals, the administration made some changes, including setting a requirement that governing boards have at least one voting consumer representative. Earlier rules allowing up to half of the other members to have ties to the insurance industry stayed the same.
That disappoints consumer advocates, who would have preferred the governing boards “be dominated by consumers,” said Timothy Jost, who speaks as a consumer representative before the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and is a professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law. But Jost said he is pleased the final rules require at least one consumer representative. “It at least gives a toe-hold,” he said.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/rules-give-shape-to-health-insurance-exchanges/2012/03/12/gIQANuvH8R_story.html
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