Ohio is one of six states that has shown “no significant activity” toward creating a health insurance exchange, an online insurance-buying marketplace that was one of the key pieces of last year’s federal health reform law.
Ohio’s inactivity puts it in a group with Alaska, South Dakota, Texas, Florida and New Hampshire, according to the above map from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
And if signs coming from Gov. John Kasich’s administration give any indication toward the future (and they certainly do), Ohioans should get used to a period of inactivity on the exchange.
Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor also heads the state’s Department of Insurance, which would be charged with implementing Ohio’s exchange. However, Taylor has repeatedly expressed outright hostility toward the “ObamaCare” health reform law and would almost certainly prefer to see it fail. That obviously means that she, and in turn the Kasich administration, have little incentive or interest in doing anything to help it along.
Ohio Republicans blame their foot-dragging not on antagonism toward Obamacare, but on another familiar bogeyman that seems to be popping up more and more in public policy discussions in recent years: uncertainty. “We are currently evaluating an exchange, but it’s complicated by the fact that the federal government appears to be uncertain about what it wants to do on exchanges since it keeps delaying the deadlines,” a Kasich spokesman said earlier this month.
Perhaps it’s Gov. Kasich’s recent unpopularity — an approval rating at 40 percent in a September poll — that keeps the administration from joining Texas and Louisiana in admitting that they’ve decided not to create their own exchanges.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Kasich’s political handlers are likely aware that the health reform law has become increasingly popular over time (though there is without question still substantial opposition) and, after a bruising defeat on collective bargaining for public unions, want no part of another high-stakes and high-profile public battle on an issue on which he’s opposed by roughly half the state’s population.
For states like Ohio that have taken no steps toward creating their exchanges, some sort of resolution will begin taking shape in January 2013. That’s when the Obama administration has to certify whether or not a state has made enough progress to run its own exchange, WonkBlog reported. If a state hasn’t, the federal government will do it instead.
