Lawmakers weigh future of state’s health insurance exchange

March 1, 2015 12:04 pm

By The Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ The new director of Rhode Island‘s health insurance exchange is making a case for keeping the state-run marketplace as some lawmakers are calling for its demise.

Director Anya Rader Wallack says Rhode Island can use the state exchange as a tool to innovate and control health care costs in ways it couldn’t if it switched.

Gov. Gina Raimondo supports keeping it in Rhode Island. But a group of lawmakers, led by Republican Rep. Patricia Morgan, want to transfer its operations to the federal government.

Morgan says she thinks she’ll get support now that federal contributions to implement the Affordable Care Act are running out.

Until now the system has been federally funded. The state must partially fund the exchange starting in July and bear the full cost starting Jan. 1, 2016.