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Georgia wont create health insurance exchanges
Deal calls federal regulations burdensome
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Georgia will not create the health insurance exchanges required under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, Gov. Nathan Deal announced Friday.That means the federal government will operate the exchanges instead, but exactly how that will affect the state is still uncertain.“I think we’re just going to have to wait and see what really does transpire after this and what does it mean,” Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce President Kit Dunlap said Friday afternoon.Deal, a Republican, outlined his stance in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in which he criticized the Democratic health care plan for what he called its “one-size-fits-all approach” and the financial burdens it places on state governments.“We believe that a well designed, private free-market approach to small business exchanges could be beneficial to small businesses but the regulations promulgated by your administration take those options away,” Deal wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.Since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld most of Obama’s health care overhaul as constitutional, Deal has strongly suggested that Georgia would not move to implement portions of it. He delayed taking any action on the plan until after the presidential election in the hope Republican candidate Mitt Romney would win.