• The Kansas Insurance Department received a $1 million federal Exchange Planning grant in September 2010.

• The Department also received a $31.5 million federal early innovator grant to develop an exchange information technology infrastructure that could be replicated by other sates. The state planned to extend the new Kansas Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program eligibility system to provide eligibility and enrollment services for an exchange. However, on August 9, 2011, the Governor announced the state would return all Early Innovator grant funding.

• In May 2011 Governor Brownback signed into law a measure prohibiting health plans operating within a Kansas exchange from offering abortion services unless the pregnant woman’s life is in danger.

• In 2011 eight exchange planning work groups comprised of different stakeholders recommended on the structure and facilitation of the exchange.

• The federal government will assume full responsibility for running a health insurance exchange in Kansas beginning in 2014.

For More Information:

• http://www.ksinsurance.org/hbexplan/