Former Sen. Frist Backs State Health Insurance Exchanges

Former Senate Majority Leader and heart surgeon Bill Frist is calling on states to get going on their health insurance exchanges.

The exchanges are part of the Affordable Care Act and some Republican governors who oppose the law are refusing to set them up.

The Tennessee Republican wrote in an opinion piece for The Week magazine that the idea for state exchanges originated with the GOP. He calls them innovative and market-driven.

Frist said that the exchanges will insure more people, who will then be more likely to seek life-saving health care.

He noted that some GOP governors are refusing to set up exchanges. Frist argued that states are better off to design their own exchanges rather than default to the one-size-fits-all approach the federal government will design.

Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Haslam is not among the governors fighting the exchanges. His administration has begun establishing a health insurance exchange for his state.