The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded a $27.2 million grant to Maryland that will help cover start-up costs to establish the state's new insurance marketplace.
Lawmakers still aren't sure just how much the marketplace, also known as the health benefits exchange, will cost but the grant is another step toward offsetting the state's share of the financing, according to Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.
While Maryland is responsible for setting up the exchange, state officials are hopeful that their ambitious actions to swiftly implement the reform, part of President Obama's health care overhaul, will be rewarded with enough federal grants to fully fund the program's start-up costs.
The exchange program will operate as a market to sell health care plans to uninsured residents and small Maryland businesses that don't provide employees with insurance.
Officials are working on applications for several other grants, according to Marc Goldberg, Brown's spokesman.
Gov. Martin O'Malley signed the law creating the exchange earlier this year, placing Maryland at the forefront
of complying with the federal Affordable Care Act.
"Because we have taken smart and aggressive steps forward to establish our
exchange, Maryland has received these critical dollars that will ensure state funds are not needed to get the exchange ready and operational by the Jan. 1, 2014, federal deadline," Brown said.
Maryland is one of 16 states that have been awarded the grant, which will help establish administrative and operating procedures for the health care exchange, including hiring staff and developing a data analysis to help shape the marketplace.
The state has received $34.4 million from HHS to create the exchange, including another $6.2 million grant given to only six states.
Implementing the federally mandated health care reform will save the state an estimated $850 million and cut the number of uninsured residents in half by 2020, according to a report by the Maryland
Health Care Reform Coordinating Council, headed by Brown.
O'Malley appointed a nine-member exchange board to determine strategies for implementing the program. The board will make recommendations on those issues early next year.
Maryland is one of only three states with such a board already operating, according to Brown. The board held it's first meeting June 3.
