March 2012 | Joel C. Cantor | Opinion: Active or Passive, That Is the Question
But is it the right question? The current version of the “New Jersey Health Benefit Exchange Act” under consideration in the state legislature would create a new health insurance marketplace for thousands of individuals and small businesses. The national Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires establishing exchanges in every state. Whether to create an exchange is up to each state, but states that fail to do so will have one created for them by the federal government. This promise, or, in the view of many, this threat, is enough to motivate nearly all states regardless of political stripe to move ahead with exchange legislation. In either case, open enrollment in the New Jersey exchange will begin in the fall of 2013.