According to Politico Pro [$]:
More than $860 million of President Barack Obama’s proposed $1 billion increase in the CMS budget will go to building the federal exchange, acting [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said during a budget briefing at HHS on Monday.
This funding is necessary in part because the amount originally appropriated for the federal costs of implementing the Affordable Care Act — $1 billion — is expected to be gone by the end of this year, HHS officials said.
Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources Ellen Murray said at the briefing that half of these funds have already been obligated, and the remaining amount will be used by the end of the year.
She also said states will still be able to get help building exchanges, because other ACA funds are still available for exchange work.
“Funding for [state grants] was provided in the Affordable Care Act, so the money we’re asking for in this budget is just for the federal exchange,” Murray said.
In other words, the federal government doesn’t have the money to create ObamaCare Exchanges, and the administration has no hope of getting that funding through the Republican-controlled House. So if states don’t create Exchanges, they might not exist. (And even if the federal government does create them, they won’t work.)
Never mind the lawsuits. The Exchanges may be ObamaCare’s most serious vulnerability.
