The Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce wants the 2012 Idaho Legislature to create a state-operated health insurance exchange as directed by the 2010 health care reform law.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires states to set up health insurance exchanges by Jan. 1, 2013, or default to a federal exchange for residents and small employers to buy insurance in a competitive marketplace.
Gov. Butch Otter is behind a state-run exchange, but there are some hold-outs in the Legislature who don't want Idaho to go along with the federal health-insurance reform law that passed Congress last year. The Idaho Department of Insurance is working on draft legislation.
"The chamber supports a state exchange rather than a federal exchange so that Idaho can maintain authority over the state's private health insurance market," the chamber said in a news release.
Not setting up an exchange could raise the cost of health care in Idaho, the business group said. Idaho's the nation's lowest health care costs, which makes it an "attractive spot for economic development," the Boise Chamber said.
