The Incidental Economist

Yesterday was the deadline for states to decide whether or not they’d run their own high-risk pool or rely on a federal fallback option. Kaiser Health News has gathered a collection of news stories, one of which (Wall St. Journal) says that 12 states will not run their own program. Another (CQ HealthBeat) has a partial list:

As of 12:30 p.m. Friday, these are the states that will operate a program: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington. States opting out are Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee and Wyoming. (Bold mine.)

Also of interest are estimates of high-risk pool costs relative to the $5 billion set aside for them. The Wall St. Journal reports that “Last week, an actuarial report from HHS found the program would burn through the $5 billion set aside for it as soon as next year, though the money is supposed to last until 2014.”

(I can’t seem to find the HHS actuarial report to which the WSJ refers. If anyone locates it or a full list of opt-in and opt-out states, please let me know.)

Later: For the actuarial report, see AB’s comment below.

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