Iowa Health Insurance Exchange for one million Iowans
To: Members and selected others
From: Paul
A projected one million Iowans will participate in the new Health Insurance Exchange – a marketplace where individuals and small businesses can shop for health care coverage and receive subsidies. What will happen as the State of Iowa faces a deadline to create an Iowa Insurance Exchange or let the Federal Government do it? At this time this is unclear. Attached are two items: 1) a recent Des Moines Register editorial which high lights the current Iowa political climate and concludes "Let the feds create Iowa's health exchange" and 2) a set of guiding principles (Essential Principles for Success) which are supported by 34 Iowa consumer-purchaser organizations including the Iowa Health Buyers Alliance (IHBA). See list of names at the bottom of page 2 and top of page 3.
The position of the Iowa consumer-purchaser advocate group (Iowa Health Advocates) can be summed up this way: Iowa needs a strong exchange that is consumer and employer focused, regardless of weather it created by the State of Iowa or by the federal government.
Stay tuned.
Paul M. Pietzsch, MPH
HPCI - IHBA Office
4430 Ashley Park Drive
West Des Moines, Iowa 50265
(515) 778-6300