Members of the public want the managers of the DC Health Link to consider paying for exchange operations by imposing new taxes on the sales of items such as tobacco, alcohol, sugar and salt.
At least one would like the exchange to benefit from the fines produced by traffic enforcement cameras and parking meters.
The District of Columbia Health Benefit Exchange Authority has included the comments proposing those funding solutions in a packet prepared for a recent board meeting.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provided startup funding for locally-based public health insurance exchanges, but it requires the locally-based exchanges to become financially self-sustaining starting in 2015.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expects to fund its exchanges with an exchange insurer user fee equal to 3.5 percent of exchange plan premium revenue.
In a draft financial sustainability report, D.C. exchange managers suggested that the authority could levy a licensing fee and collect a “broad-based assessment on all health insurance premiums in the district” from non-group, small group, large group and Medicaid managed care carriers.