LePage: Maine won't start health care exchange
A day after requesting more time to ponder whether Maine will create its own health care exchange under President Obama's new law, Gov. Paul LePage told the White House that Maine has decided not to create its own exchange.
The Portland Press Herald reported that, in a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, LePage wrote Maine "is not going to assist in the implementation of this (law) in its current form."
On Wednesday, LePage joined other governors in signing a letter drafted by Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal that asked the White House for more time to make a decision.
In response, the president announced late Thursday an extension of the deadline, to Dec. 14, for states to let the federal government know whether they intended to set up their own health care exchanges or share management with the federal government.
If states opt not to participate, the law says the federal government will manage a state's health care exchange — a Web marketplace that allows people seeking insurance to compare available plans.
LePage's office told Mainebiz in October that the state was still "assessing options" for creating its own exchange.
In his letter to the White House, LePage wrote that the Affordable Care Act "is a stepping stone to a single-payer system. Maine will not be complicit in the degradation of our nation's premier health care system."
Joe Bruno, a former Republican legislator and chairman of an advisory committee formed to explore how the state might create its exchange, told the Press Herald that a federally run system brings uncertainty.
"You could end up with something cookie-cutter that just doesn't fit here," Bruno told the paper.
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