California is part of a group of new states that has been approved by the federal government to run its own health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.
Thursday's approvals are conditional, based mostly on the states’ ability to meet federal guidelines and satisfy conditions of their own plans for the new marketplaces.
Gary Cohen, a director with the federal agency implementing key provisions of the federal health law, commented that, "In all these states there’s more work to be done to be ready for open enrollment in October of 2013, but we believe that they’ve made significant progress and have presented a plan to get them there.”
The announcement means a total of nineteen states and the District of Columbia have been certified to partially or fully run their own exchanges. Other states have until the middle of February to apply to run an exchange in partnership with the federal government.
