More states planning to run their own exchanges

Kaiser Health News published an interesting article describing how more states are planning on running their own insurance exchanges. The motivation seems to largely come down to financial savings: apparently, states pay the federal insurance exchange a surcharge of around 3% of the premiums collected. For larger states, that surcharge can amount to over one hundred million dollars per year, and some states think they can operate their own exchange for less. States that run their own exchanges might also advertise enrollment more, perhaps leading to fewer uninsured individuals.

The article reports that some states encountered technical difficulties and ended up reverting to the federal exchange, so it remains to be seen how successful these efforts will be. It is interesting how many tens of millions of dollars (or more) it takes to run these changes.