Accepting Federal Exchange Funding for Obamacare: A Dangerous Proposition for the States
Nina Owcharenko Schaefer /
Right now, states across the country are trying to figure out what to do in response to Obamacare and its health insurance exchange architecture. In Oklahoma, the question has gone even further as the state government debates whether or not to accept federal funding, appropriated in the Obamacare statute, to create a state information technology system for a health care exchange.
In Ed Haislmaier’s recent paper, he describes this dilemma:
Trying to shoehorn patient-centered, market-based reforms into the bureaucratic architecture of Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges is not a viable strategy, either practically or politically. But refusing to create an Obamacare state exchange, while politically appealing, would leave state health insurance markets vulnerable to even more federal interference and disruption over the next two years.