Bipartisan governors' network issues health reform priorities

The National Governors Association today released shared priorities from its bipartisan forum on strengthening private health insurance, Medicaid and public health. The priorities include fully funding the cost-sharing reductions for the health insurance marketplaces through calendar year 2018, and offering long-term certainty about the future of CSR. They also call for more flexibility in selecting or creating essential health benefits benchmark plans, while retaining a default benchmark for states that do not select one. Launched in March, the forum includes 13 states: California, Delaware, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. Most of the states that expanded Medicaid, with the exception of Kentucky, want to maintain coverage for those populations at the federal matching rate under current law. The others seek to continue the federal matching rate under current law, or extend or modify coverage with additional state flexibility to tailor populations covered and benefits.