Thursday, February 10, 2011

Florida Stopping Implementation of PPACA (Health Reform)

This is a follow-up to the previous post, District Court Judge Roger Vinson Just Said No, Too!  As a result of the recent federal court ruling, by U.S District Judge Roger Vinson, which declared PPACA or at least the Individual Mandate to be unconstitutional, Florida has stopped the implementation of the law.  Florida Governor Rick Scott said, "We're not going to spend a lot of time and money with regard to trying to get ready to implement that until we know exactly what is going to happen and I hope and believe that either it will be declared unconstitutional or it will be repealed.  Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty stated, "PPACA, a major component of the federal Affordable Care Act package, is not now in effect in Florida."  In addition McCarty said that he told the director of HHS (Health and Human Services) Office of the Consumer Information and Oversight, that Florida would not be spending any of the funds it had been allocated to implement the insurance exchange program. 

Since there were 25 other states that also were part of the lawsuit, I wonder how many of them will make decisions, at the state level, to stop implementation until a final determination has been made?  Final determinations could take as long as two years.