D.C. council approves broad exchange fee

The Council of the District of Columbia has given the district’s locally run health benefits exchange permission to use a wide-ranging assessment to fund its operations in 2015.

The D.C. council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve an exchange funding resolution. The resolution calls for managers of the DC Health Link exchange to move ahead with efforts to impose a 1 percent assessment on all “health insurance carriers” in the distrct.

Only four carriers are selling major medical coverage through the exchange this year.

Carriers cannot sell products such as indemnity insurance, disability insurance, vision insurance or long-term care insurance (LTCI) through the exchange, and some have asked in comments on the proposal why they should have to help pay for the exchange.