CA Health Exchange Approved

The fed­eral gov­ern­ment has granted the state of Cal­i­for­nia approval to over­see its own health insur­ance mar­ket. The U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices says the state can now move for­ward with draft­ing a mar­ket­place, which will aim to pro­vide unin­sured con­sumers with afford­able cov­er­age. Accord­ing to the Cal­i­for­nia Health­Care Foun­da­tion, there are some 7,100,000 Cal­i­for­ni­ans with­out insur­ance, or 18% of the entire pop­u­la­tion. The pro­posal was sub­mit­ted last month by Cov­ered Cal­i­for­nia, who esti­mate that some 2,000,000 res­i­dents will receive assis­tance under the new plan.