Florida Program Resembling Exchange To Launch in 2012
Florida is preparing to launch a health insurance marketplace in 2012, two years before it is mandatory under the federal health reform law. Details about the program -- called Florida Health Choices -- indicate that it will not resemble the insurance exchanges being established in other states. State health officials have declined to acknowledge the program as an exchange partly because the state is part of a multistate lawsuit against the reform law. In addition, the program includes differences from the insurance exchanges mandated by the law. For example, it will not require plans to offer "essential health benefit"; it will be open only to small businesses with 50 or fewer employees, not individuals; and it will not offer tax credits to businesses that provide coverage to workers.
- "Florida Readies Its Own Health Insurance Exchange" (Galewitz, Kaiser Health News, 10/8).