HHS approves healthcare exchanges in 3 states

Three more states won conditional approval Thursday to run their own insurance exchanges under President Obama's signature healthcare law.

The Health and Human Services Department gave conditional approval to state-run exchanges in Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island.

HHS has previously given conditional approval to eight states and Washington, D.C.

Exchanges must be up and running by 2014, but many Republican governors have refused to implement their own marketplaces, hoping to strain the federal implementation and cause problems for a healthcare law they have consistently opposed.

The Affordable Care Act envisions each state setting up its own exchange but authorizes a federally run fallback in states that do not act on their own.

“States across the country are working to implement the health care law and build a marketplace that works for their residents,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. “In ten months, consumers in all fifty states will have access to a new marketplace where they will be able to easily purchase quality health insurance plans.” 

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