Inside Health Policy quoted Manatt’s Joel Ario, a managing director with Manatt Health, on Oklahoma’s recent withdrawal of its 1332 reinsurance waiver application. The publication noted that the wavier would have helped 130,000 residents by reducing premiums by approximately 34 percent, but that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services failed to approve the wavier by Sept. 25 as promised.
Ario explains that the news is surprising and somewhat ominous, given that Oklahoma had completed its 30-day public comment period and that its program was very similar to the ones approved in Alaska and Minnesota.
“There is one more reinsurance waiver pending for Oregon with the public comment period up on Oct. 11,” Ario says. “It also will be illuminating to watch how Minnesota fares in having to renegotiate the BHP part of its waiver after getting consistently positive signals until very recently.”