Health Care Standards Start to Roll Out Print E-mail
healthcareRules on exchanges a main topic of conversation.

The federal government this week released standards for the new health care law, which will allow families, individuals and small businesses in all states to shop for insurance. 

These insurance exchanges, "will offer Americans competition, choice and clout," said Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

Meanwhile, states will have latitude on how to create those new insurance exchanges, which will open in 2014. 

Republicans and Democrats agree on the exchanges in principle, though how those exchanges are regulated is widely debated between the two parties.

12 states, including Washington, have enacted laws to establish exchanges. Bills to establish exchanges in nine other states failed, and 11 others are still pending.