Following President Barack Obama’s re-election Tuesday night, Gov. Scott Walker now faces a political challenge he has avoided addressing: implementing the Affordable Care Act in Wisconsin.
The controversial Affordable Care Act was officially enacted in 2010 and introduced new provisions for nationwide health care. After being enacted, the law faced a challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court but remained intact after the court deemed the law’s central components constitutional.
Walker postponed implementing the law in Wisconsin last year because of uncertainty over who would hold the presidency after Election Day. If Obama had lost, Republican challenger Mitt Romney would likely have repealed the act.
However, now that the election is decided and Democrats will maintain control of the presidency and U.S. Senate, Walker and the Republican-controlled state legislature will have to work quickly to develop a plan implementing the act by the federally mandated Nov. 16 deadline.
As part of the response, the state must decide whether to set up a required virtual marketplace, which would allow individuals and businesses to purchase government-approved health-care plans, by itself or leave the exchange’s creation to the federal government. The marketplace, no matter who oversees its creation, will have to be operational by 2014, when implementation of the law is scheduled to begin.
According to Walker spokesperson Cullen Werwie, the governor has begun to plan Wisconsin’s response to the Affordable Care Act.
“Over the next few days he'll be meeting with key agency officials regarding the future of health insurance exchanges in Wisconsin,” Werwie said in an email.
