Summary:

• In 2010 The Alabama Department of Insurance received $1 million from a federal Exchange Planning grant. The Department was then awarded an $8.6 million federal Level One Establishment grant to support activities and contracts around exchange implementation in November 2011.

• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is giving technical backing through the State Health Reform Assistance network to Alabama (one of 10 states receiving this assistance). This assistance includes help with setting up health insurance exchanges, expanding Medicaid to the newly qualifying populations, streamlining eligibility and enrollment systems, implementing insurance market reforms and using data to drive decisions.

• Alabama did not select a benchmark plan and will therefore default to its largest small-group plan- Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama 320 Plan PPO.

•  On June 2, 2011, Governor Robert Bentley (R) created the Alabama Health Insurance Exchange Study Commission to recommend how Alabama should establish a health insurance exchange. The commission recommended the establishment of a state marketplace exchange.

•  Though Governor Bentley publicly supported Alabama’s implementation of a state-based health insurance exchange in May 2012 he threatened to veto a bill establishing a state exchange that passed in the House if it cleared the Senate before the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The bill failed in 2012, just as a similar bill had in 2011. The Governor then decided that Alabama would wait till after elections in November before final decision would be made on the exchange.

•  Work began in 2012 to upgrade the Medicaid eligibility system and make it more manageable.

• May 2012 Governor Bentley signed into law a measure that prohibits health plans operating within an Alabama exchange from offering abortion services except in the case of endangerment, incest, or rape.

For More Information:

• http://www.aldoi.gov/Consumers/HealthInsReform.aspx