Health benefits exchange bill tabled

10 February 2012

After hearing hours of testimony on how to set up a health benefits exchange (HBE), which would be the new marketplace for individuals and small businesses to buy health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a Senate subcommittee nixed four of the bills before it, amended the remaining one and then tabled it for the year.

SB 496 was amended by the health insurance subcommittee of the Commerce and Labor Committee before the subcommittee voted to end consideration of the measure for this session. An amendment to the bill specifically enumerates that a physician be included on the HBE advisory panel. This is a provision that the Medical Society of Virginia (MSV) requested.

Similar bills in the House of Delegates were dismissed for the session. There has been talk by legislators, that depending on the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the ACA this summer, the General Assembly could convene a special session to approve HBE legislation.