Sep 28 2012
A pair of stories from CQ HealthBeat examines emerging issues in the implementation of health exchanges.
CQ HealthBeat: HHS Reiterates Federal Exchange Will Be Ready After Hatch Presses For Details
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch of Utah is pressing federal officials to give states more details about how a federal health exchange will work as the states confront a Nov. 16 deadline for telling the Health and Human Services Department whether they will operate an exchange on their own. HHS said Wednesday that it is reviewing the letter from the Utah Republican and declined further comment on the federal exchange other than to say it will be ready on time (Adams, 9/26).
CQ HealthBeat: OPM Working To Attract Interest In Multistate Plans
The Office of Personnel Management, in an effort to persuade a variety of large health plans to provide multistate exchange proposals, is offering to allow insurers to cover only part of a geographic area at first when the option begins in January 2014. The OPM revealed new details about the plans when it invited comments, which are due by Oct. 22, on a 20-page draft application for participation. The agency appears to be interested in making it as easy to participate as possible (Adams, 9/26).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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