Wyoming health exchange bill will continue to Legislature

The Legislature’s Joint Health and Labor committee has sent a bill to the full legislature that would allow a steering committee to continue working on developing a state run health exchange.  Eventually Wyoming would have the option to partner with other states in the future. 

The exchange is a marketplace where small businesses and individuals can purchase and compare insurance. 

House Committee Co-Chair Elaine Harvey has served on the steering committee considering what Wyoming’s exchange should look like.  She favors an approach that would limit federal impact.

“My inclination is that we follow in Utah’s footsteps and we develop an exchange that fits our citizens.  We will run the small business exchange and the individual market.  But we will not be involved in (federal) subsidies.”

Harvey says an exchange would benefit citizens.  The committee bill keeps anyone in state government from committing to an exchange prior to April first of 2013.   That is intended to see where the national health care landscape sits at that time.