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Health Officials Move To Loosen State Requirements

By Noam N. Levey–July 12, 2011

Washington— The Obama administration moved Monday to ease some requirements on states to help them set up new insurance exchanges in 2014, a key feature of the healthcare law the president signed last year.The state-based exchanges are intended to make buying health insurance comparable to shopping the Internet for an airline ticket or a hotel room. And by 2019, the exchanges are expected to provide insurance for an estimated 24 million Americans who don’t get their health insurance from their employer, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Small employers with fewer than 100 workers also will be able to use the exchanges, which will have to offer plans with a minimum level of coverage. No plans will be able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Setting The Standards For Health Insurance Exchanges

 Many states are struggling to get their health exchange plans ready by deadline.  

By SARAH KLIFF | 7/11/11 11:34 PM EDT

The Obama administration’s newest health reform regulation, laying the groundwork for health insurance marketplaces in all states, may raise more questions than those it answers.

The administration released a proposed regulation Monday that sets the standards for new marketplaces — health insurance exchanges — that are supposed to launch in every state by 2014. They’re supposed to be where individuals and small businesses can browse a wide selection of easily comparable health plans and pick the one that’s best for them. If the exchanges don’t work well, it’s a good bet that the rest of President Barack Obama’s health care law won’t work, either.

But a lot of states have struggled to get ready fast enough to have their exchange planning well under way by 2013. And if they haven’t made enough progress by then, the law calls on the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare to run exchanges for them — an outcome that the law’s opponents could easily depict as a “federal takeover” of health care. (more…)

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