As states lag in implementing health-care law, bigger federal role looks likely

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

Across the country, states are lagging in preparations to erect the health insurance market­places at the heart of the 2010 health-care overhaul, bogged down by a combination of partisan hostility and practical hurdles.

Faced with the delay, administration officials have been ramping up talks with state leaders in recent weeks over ways the federal government could pitch in without having to completely take over — speaking both informally and at a series of regional meetings underway.

The private discussions are evolving, with a range of federal-state partnership arrangements under consideration. But analysts on both sides of the health-care debate say one thing appears increasingly certain: The system of 50 completely state-operated insurance markets envisaged by the law is not what Americans will encounter when these “exchanges” open for business in 2014.

“When this law was passed in the spring of 2010, people really believed the states would get on board and we would see almost all exchanges being state-run,” said Timothy Jost, an expert on health policy at Washington and Lee University who supports the statute. “But there is a growing concern that quite a number of states will not be ready.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-states-lag-in-implementing-health-care-law-bigger-federal-role-looks-likely/2011/08/29/gIQA8k6ZIK_singlePage.html

[supernova]

1. We will have single payer

by default because the states will not be able to come up with 50 functioning "marketplaces."

[OHdem10]

3. Is this just an excuse to overturn HCR???? Are some states

dragging their feet, thinking the Republicans will
win all three branches of government and overturn it?

Just a thought? Which states????

[supernova]

4. a little of both I think

I think that state houses that the GOP control are dragging their feet, like here in NC. Other places, it really is a complex monstrosity to get up and running at the best of times.

In any event, if this stuff isn't in place, i.e. you can I can go online and comparison shop plans for our states, by 2014, I think the fed will have to step in and create a marketplace. I hope one that features a public option. Because, doesn't the law say that if the states are not capable or won't setup a market, then the fed must do it?

[S_B_Jackson]

7. Abso-freakin'-lutely! All of the states which have joined in with Florida in their suit, and VA too!

And just to rub salt in the wounds they'll argue that THEIR procrastination is why they won't be able to meet the target dates set out in the ACA.

[DJ13]

2. ........without having to completely take over

So they're afraid of instituting a de facto public option.

I guess the insurance lobby is still buying favors.

[Cool Logic]

5. “But there is a growing concern that quite a number of states will not be ready.”

Indeed, why get ready for something that could very well be "tossed" by the Supreme Court?

[Supersedeas]

6. the Law was delayed in order to give States an opportunity to prepare. Instead

of preparing, State Legislatures are intentionally stalling in hopes that either the Supreme Court or the election of a GOP President will mean that the Law will never be enforced.