LITTLE ROCK — Legislative opposition has forced a halt to planning efforts for a state-run health insurance exchange, the state health commissioner said Friday.
Jay Bradford said the Health Benefits Exchange Planning Steering Committee, a volunteer advisory group he appointed in April to address public recommendations for a state-run exchange, recently decided the exchange was no longer a viable option.
The panel recommended that it and six other groups working on the project disband, Bradford said.
“Although disappointed with this outcome, I have accepted the committee’s recommendation,” Bradford said in a statement.
Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, a critic of health exchange, said Friday he was pleased with Bradford’s decision.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Burris said the decision should have been made in September after Gov. Mike Beebe said he had no plans to move forward with any more federal grants to plan for the project until the exchange proposal had legislative support.
Beebe made his comments after he and Bradford received letters from Burris and five other GOP legislators asking that the state not apply for a $3.8 million grant by the Sept. 30 deadline.
Bradford has been using a previous $1 million grant to prepare for the exchange. Republican lawmakers opposed to the federal health care reform law block Bradford’s efforts to gain additional federal money for planning during this year’s legislative session.
“What Mr. Bradford said today I thought had largely been settled when the governor decided not to apply for any additional grants,” Burris said. “I don’t think we need to move forward with implementation of health care reform until there has been a ruling from the Supreme Court.”
The U.S. Supreme Court announced last month that it would review the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care overhaul that Congress approved in 2010.
Bradford said Friday that the state can no longer meet the Jan. 1, 2014, deadline for states to create their own insurance exchanges, and that enrollment for the federal exchange will begin in October 2013, if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the law.
Burris said he thought the 2014 deadline in the health care reform law put states in a difficult position.
“I think there are multiple deadlines, the final rules have yet to be written,” he said. “Most states don’t know yet what they are being asked to comply with, so we’re doing what most states are doing.”
Burris said 15 states have decided to plan for the exchange, rather than wait to see what the Supreme Court does first.
“I think the cautious approach is the best one,” he said. “We need to wait and see what the Supreme Court says, before we rush to spend taxpayer money to implement health care.”