Illinois lawmakers deserve praise for holding off on state-funded ObamaCare exchange

It might be rare to heap praise on Illinois’ state lawmakers, but their decision not to move forward on a state-funded exchange deserves recognition.

Last week, the Illinois General Assembly adjourned without moving forward on a state-funded health insurance exchange as part of the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare. The state would have received federal funding to establish the exchange, but Illinois would have been left to fund all future exchange costs – salaries, marketing, IT maintenance and upgrades; pensions and other retirement benefits; and office space – which could have exceeded $100 million per year.

It might be rare to heap praise on Illinois’ state lawmakers, but their decision not to move forward on a state-funded exchange deserves recognition.

In addition to the high price tag for this endeavor, one had to wonder how the state would have pulled off this feat before the start of the next open enrollment period in October 2015, especially when considering the fact that other states had far more time and were still unable to successfully launch their own exchanges.

The experiences of those states demonstrate just how daunting a task this would be. In Oregon, for example, the state spent $303 million on establishing a state-funded exchange and not a single person was able to enroll for coverage online. Oregon’s exchange and some of the state’s senior political leadership are now the subject of federal investigations.

Given the susceptibility of Illinois to cronyism and mismanagement, there should be little doubt that lawmakers helped the state avert similar spectacular failure.

Rather than rush through legislation to establish a state-funded exchange without a deep understanding of what that level of administrative and financial responsibility would entail for Illinois, lawmakers took the wise approach. Given the broad range of fiscal and management challenges the state is already facing, they recognized that now is not the time to add to the state’s growing list of responsibilities.