Gov. Nathan Deal issued an executive order Thursday appointing a group of lawmakers, health care experts, state officials and advocates to study whether Georgia should create a health insurance exchange.
The exchange will be a new marketplace for small business owners and people who don't get health insurance at work to shop for coverage and obtain subsidies to pay for plans starting in 2014. Every state will have the chance to design and run its own exchange under the federal health care law. The feds will set up exchanges in states that decide not to run their own marketplaces.
The 26-member Georgia Health Insurance Exchange Advisory Committee must issue its recommendation by December 15.
Deal's action comes after the state Legislature failed to approve a bill that would have established a similar group. Deal is opposed to the federal health care law, but he said in a statement that it makes sense for Georgia to study the issue while waiting for the courts to decide whether the health care law is unconstitutional.
"I want Georgia to have time to thoroughly study this issue as we wait for the judicial process to play out," Deal said in the statement. “I want to engage Georgians about how we can expand access to health care insurance while lowering the burdensome costs on our state’s families. Georgians don’t want more federal ‘solutions’ and the best way to fight back right now is to manufacture a Georgia solution."
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