If you’d like to discuss employment or health care law, contact David Weissman, head of the Rose Law Group Employment Law and Managed Health Care Law Practice, dweissman@roselawgroup.com
Just days after giving governors more time to declare whether states would commit to running online marketplace for subsidized health coverage, the Obama administration released hundreds of pages of proposed rules on required benefits and other aspects of implementing the federal health law.
But Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer still has important unanswered questions about the health exchange, particularly about how a federally created exchange would work if the state were to choose that option, Brewer health policy adviser Don Hughes told The Associated Press.
The exchange would provide a digital on-ramp for middle-class households to obtain subsidized private insurance. That’s part of the law’s plan to provide health coverage for millions of Americans now without it.
Another part of the law that would provide coverage for more people expands the federal-state Medicaid program to provide its government-paid coverage to more low-income people.
Whether Arizona participates in the law’s optional Medicaid expansion is another controversial decision facing Brewer further down the road, and one her staff has said she’ll unveil in her January budget proposal or possibly sooner.
But a deadline on the exchange decision still looms. On that issue, it’s a question of who creates the exchange, not whether one is created.
