By Sarah Kliff, Published: June 24, 2013 at 1:50 pm
Obamacare hit a pretty important milestone this weekend: The law is now 100 days away from its main provisions coming into effect. That means the administration is pretty much in an all-out sprint to set up an infrastructure by which millions of Americans will soon purchase insurance coverage.
A potential approximation of an Obamacare summer to-do list? (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
It’s hard to understate the enormity of the task at hand for the Obama administration. It will be orchestrating the largest expansion of private health insurance in the country’s history. That means there’s a huge amount of work to be done over the next few months. There are at least 99 things that need to happen between now and October, and I’ve got a list to prove it. Much of this is informed by the Government Accountability Office report that came out last week, on the next big steps that need to happen on health exchanges. Some are big, some are small but all are pretty necessary to making the law work.
Here they are:
1. Health and Human Services must certify that 17 states will be able to launch their own marketplaces. While these states currently have conditional approval, none have the final go ahead to launch their exchange.
That means that…
2. Washington State must launch a health insurance exchange
3. Oregon must launch a health insurance exchange
4. California must launch a health insurance exchange
5. Idaho must launch a health insurance exchange
6. Hawaii must launch a health insurance exchange
7. Colorado must launch a health insurance exchange
8. Minnesota must launch a health insurance exchange
9. Kentucky must launch a health insurance exchange
10. Exchange list interruption: The federal government likely needs to work on the fact that 42 percent of Americans don’t know that the health-care law is a law at all.