Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the distribution of an additional $224 million in establishment grants to five states and the District of Columbia to create health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.

The six grant recipients are:

  • Arkansas: Receives $18.6 million to partner with HHS on a federally run exchange;
  • Colorado: Receives $43.5 million “to meet deadlines for [plan] certification, testing and deployment of systems, and operations”;
  • District of Columbia: Receives $72.9 million to hire staff and consultants to manage the creation of its exchange and its first year of operations;
  • Kentucky: Receives $4.4 million to develop a consumer assistance program;
  • Massachusetts: Receive $41.7 million to update its existing exchange so it is compatible with ACA; and
  • Minnesota: Receives $42.5 million to develop broker and consumer assistance services, test measures to assess health plan cost and quality and assess the security of IT systems.

However, 30 GOP-led states have said that they might decline setting up their own insurance exchange. The deadline for states to submit their exchange plans is November 16.