Online exhanges for health coverage not ready yet

There's been no action by the state House yet on creating online exchanges for people to comparison shop for health coverage.

That’s after another day of hearings by two state House committees on the question.

Governor Rick Snyder is pushing the Legislature to act quickly so Michigan qualifies for federal planning grants, and does not risk being forced into a federal system.

Representative Al Pscholka chairs the House budget subcommittee that would fund the exchange.

He says the numbers are big, and he wants to step carefully.

“I would love to get some people from Washington here where we could ask them some questions to see, really, what all of our available options are. I mean, are these deadlines going to move? And let’s’ try to take the politics out of it and decide what is the best thing for Michigan," he said.

Insurance experts told the committees that creating the online exchanges is complicated and the state should move quickly or risk missing critical deadlines.  

Many Republicans want to wait until after the November election to see if the next Congress might reverse the federal healthcare law. It was upheld last month by the U.S. Supreme Court.