Texas
Related: About this forumState to Feds: We Won't Enforce Insurance Reforms
Though Texas will join 26 other states in defaulting to a federal marketplace for purchasing health insurance a major component of the Affordable Care Act it is one of only six that will not enforce new health insurance reforms prescribed by the law. It's a decision some say could lead to confusion over who's responsible for protecting Texas insurance consumers.
Because Texas did not create its own state-based marketplace, known as a health insurance exchange, under the Affordable Care Act, it must use a federally facilitated one instead. By federal law, the state must enforce provisions and regulations related to the insurance exchange and market reforms unless it notifies the federal government that it cannot or will not. If a state does not enforce those reforms, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will step in to do it.
Texas, Arizona, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wyoming have all notified the federal government that they will not be policing the health law. John Greeley, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Insurance, said his agency cannot enforce regulations tied to the federal insurance exchange or market reforms because it is not authorized to do so.
"We can't act on anything that doesn't exist in state law," he said.
More at http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/07/state-not-enforce-key-health-reforms/ .
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)bakpakr
(168 posts)Ok cool. By the way all those Billions in Federal funds we were going to send you, Well I guess we will just have to hold on to them and find other uses for them. Like distribute them to the states that will enforce the reforms. Have a good day.
EC
(12,287 posts)a federal exchange for Medicaid. Then it won't matter if the states won't expand it.