The Obama administration has approved three more states to run their own Obamacare insurance exchanges, just days before the Supreme Court could upend the program by stripping subsidies in the states still using the federal exchange.
Delaware and Pennsylvania got permission to be state-based marketplaces starting next year, for both the individual and small group markets. Arkansas has been approved to start running the small group exchange in 2016 and the individual exchange the year after.
Governors of all three states were informed of the approvals in letters from Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
Fifteen states plus D.C. will be entirely running their own marketplaces starting next year, with the addition of Delaware and Pennsylvania.
The rest depend partially or entirely on healthcare.gov for their citizens to shop for federally-subsidied plans offered under President Obama’s healthcare law. Residents in those states could be in danger of losing the subsidies if the Supreme Court upholds the King v. Burwell challenge, a ruling expected within the next two weeks.
The dispute in that case is over whether the Obama administration can supply subsidies in the states not running their own marketplaces — which is still the vast majority of states even with the new approvals.
