Florida to launch its own health insurance marketplace

Florida’s Republican leaders are staunchly opposed to the federal health law. Then-Attorney General Bill McCollum was quick to file suit against it last year and 25 other states joined in the effort. Gov. Rick Scott turned away millions of dollars in federal health law grants, including money that would help establish a state insurance exchange that meets federal requirements. Florida also is seeking a waiver from the law’s requirement that insurers spend at least 80 percent of premium revenue on health costs.

Efforts by states to set up an exchange under the federal health law have been slow getting off the ground. So far about a dozen states have passed legislation enabling an exchange, and Rhode Island is establishing one through executive order.

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Massachusetts and Utah’s exchanges, which have been running for a couple years, are quite different. The Massachusetts one, known as the Connector, solicits bids from insurers and negotiates prices and benefits to keep costs down, and requires insurers to offer standardized policies. The Utah exchange accepts any health plan as long as it meets some minimal requirements and doesn’t restrict the products it offers. Florida’s program is being modeled after it.

The Florida initiative, which officials refuse to label an exchange, predates the federal law. The program, known as Florida Health Choices, was created in 2008 at the urging of then-Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Republican who is now a U.S. senator.

The program initially languished, but in recent months a company was hired to administer it, insurers have begun to submit benefit and cost data, and officials plan to make the site live in early 2012, according to Rose Naff, executive director of Florida Health Choices.

“We are making significant progress,” she said.

The program will sell policies to employers with four to 50 workers. Employers will be able to get a base premium from the Web site but will have to work with a participating agent to get exact prices, which vary based on the age and health of employees.

Naff cited two big advantages: Employers can fill out one application to apply for coverage at multiple insurers, and they will be able to offer up to four different health plans to their workers.

Yet small businesses are not showing much enthusiasm for Florida Health Choices. Bill Herrle, executive director of the Florida chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, said it will be difficult to compare plans, because there are no standard policies for carriers to offer. In addition, he said, the program won’t directly lower premium costs.

“It will have minimal effect,” he said.

Naff acknowledges that her program could be short-lived or forced to make major changes in 2014, when the federal government will offer an exchange meeting requirements of the ACA in states that fail to do so on their own. “There are a lot of unanswered questions. . . . If there is a federal exchange in Florida, we may have to evolve into something else,” she said.

— Kaiser Health News

Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.