Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sibelius on
Dec. 17 announced that 10 states have filed applications to create
state-based insurance exchanges (SBEs). A number of states met the
Dec. 10 deadline and submitted "Blue Print" applications
for SBE status approval. The states are California, Hawaii, Idaho,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont
and Utah. States can also choose to enter into a partnership with
the federal government in which the states conduct plan management
and/or assistance functions. The deadline for states to apply to be
a state partnership exchange (SPE) is Feb. 15, 2013.
The HHS gave conditional approval to eight states and the
District of Columbia to operate their own state health insurance
exchanges (SBEs) under the healthcare reform law. These states are
Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York,
Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia. HHS found that
these states had
