Arizona declines to set up state-based health insurance exchange
Wed, Nov 28 2012
By David
Schwartz
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said on Wednesday she was
rejecting a major provision of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law
that calls for creating state-based health insurance markets where consumers can
purchase private, federally subsidized coverage.
Citing lingering questions about the plan and operating costs she said would
be passed on to families and small businesses, Brewer, a Republican, said
Arizona would join at least 16 other states in opting instead for a federally
run health insurance exchange.
Such networks are designed to function as online insurance markets where the
uninsured can shop for private health plans offered at federally subsidized
rates, and are an integral provision of the Affordable Care Act, a centerpiece
of Obama's first term in office.
Brewer, along with many other Republicans, has been an outspoken critic of
Obama's healthcare overhaul initiative, calling it an "overreaching and
unaffordable assault on states' rights and individual liberty."
Under a newly extended deadline, states have until December 14 to notify the
U.S. Health and Human Services Department whether they intend to comply with the
insurance exchange mandate or leave it to the federal government to set up and
operate exchanges for them.
Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia have told the Obama
administration they intend to move ahead with their own exchanges, while Arizona
became the latest of 17 states to reject the plan outright in favor of a
federally based exchange, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has
closely tracked the issue.
Most of those opting out are states in the Midwest or South. Six more states
have sought to join with HHS in setting up a hybrid federal-state network, and
10 states remain undecided, the foundation said.
CALLS OPPOSITION 'UNWAVERING'
"My opposition to the Affordable Care Act is unwavering, as is my belief that
it should be repealed and replaced," Brewer said in a statement announcing her
decision. Republican Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama in the November 6
presidential election, had vowed to repeal the law if elected.
Acknowledging that the law had been upheld as constitutional by the U.S.
Supreme Court, and despite her advocacy of greater local control, Brewer said
her state would be better off ceding management of a system she said would be
dominated by the federal government in any case.
"I have come to the conclusion that the state of Arizona would wield little
actual authority over its 'state' exchange," she said.
Although startup costs of exchanges are to be borne by the federal
government, Brewer said Arizona stood to incur $27 million to $40 million in
operating expenses starting in 2015, and that those costs would be passed along
in the form of higher premiums to policy holders.
Brewer, who has clashed sharply with the Obama administration on a number of
issues, especially immigration policy, made her intentions known in a one-page
letter to HHS on Wednesday.
The state, which also has a Republican-controlled Legislature, had spent
millions of dollars in federal grant money over the past several months laying
the groundwork for the possible creation of a healthcare exchange.
Brewer faced heavy lobbying from some conservative Republicans who opposed
setting up a state-run exchange, while a number of business groups and
healthcare organizations favored creating one. State Democrats also strongly
support a state-run exchange.
One top Democratic lawmaker criticized Brewer for "an irresponsible decision"
that wasted millions of dollars already spent preparing for a state-run
exchange.
"The governor is going to throw that all away so she can push an extremist
agenda," state House of Representatives Minority Leader Chad Campbell said.
"We've come to expect political grandstanding from her, but this is a whole new
level."
Campbell said in a statement the state exchange that Brewer rejected would be
a plus for consumers, giving them more of a say over their healthcare
decisions.
"The governor just signed over a lot of power to the federal government," he
added.
(Reporting by David Schwartz; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia
Johnston and Peter Cooney)
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