As many of you know, Gary Cohen, the head of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (the HHS office that is spearheading the exchanges) was a last-minute no-show at our Health Journalism 2013 panel on state implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Whether it was budgetary (CCIIO is setting up WAY more federal exchanges than it anticipated and hasn’t pried more money out of Congress, as you can imagine) or whether somebody decided it wasn’t really such a good idea for Cohen to face a whole room of inquisitive journalists for whom CCIIO might not yet have answers was a subject of much speculation in Boston.
However, even if Cohen didn’t join us, his team did send us a timeline. (Before you get confused looking at it, QHP stands for “qualified health plans” – health plans that live up to the new rules for participation in exchanges). Here it is. You can use it to help track what’s ready, what’s lagging, what’s going through dry runs before being opened to consumers in your state.
(Click on the image to enlarge it.)
