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On Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new funding opportunity to help states continue their work to implement the Affordable Care Act. The announcement makes more funding available to build all models of affordable insurance exchanges available to states. HHS also issued further guidance today to help states understand the full scope of activities that can be funded under the available grant funding as they work to build exchanges. The funding opportunity will provide states with ten additional opportunities to apply for funding to establish a state-based exchange, state partnership exchange, or to prepare state systems for a federally facilitated exchange. To date, 34 states and the District of Columbia have received approximately $850 million in Exchange Establishment Level One and Level Two cooperative agreements to fund their progress toward building exchanges.  

Under the new announcement, states can apply for exchange establishment cooperative agreements through the end of 2014. These funds are available for states to use beyond 2014 as they continue to work on their exchanges. The guidance HHS issued today provides information on the exchange-building activities that states can fund with establishment cooperative agreements. The guidance can be found at http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/factsheets/hie-est-grant-faq-06292012.html. HHS will conduct regional implementation forums in the coming months to assist states and stakeholders on the work to be done in building exchanges, and to address their questions. More information on exchanges, including fact sheets, is available at  http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/05/exchanges05232011a.html.

Source:This Week in Washington