Bowing to a request from Republican governors, the Obama administration announced late Thursday it would give states more time to decide whether to build online health insurance markets that will help millions of people buy coverage starting next fall.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pushed back the deadline until Dec. 14 for states to submit letters of intent to build the state-based markets, called exchanges. The original deadline had been Friday, Nov. 16.
“We are committed to providing states with the flexibility, resources and time they need to deliver the benefits of the health care law to the American people,” Sebelius wrote Thursday to the Republican Governors Association (RGA). “We will continue to work directly with individual states to address their particular questions and concerns.”
The letter was in response to an RGA request Wednesday to extend the deadlines until after HHS publishes rules detailing how the exchanges would work. A slew of regulations are expected to be published in the next few weeks.
Seven states remain undecided on whether to build state-based exchanges — Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Idaho, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Arizona and Wisconsin.
The rest have indicated they planned to partner with the federal government to run the exchanges, or to allow the federal government to do it.
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