(AP) -- Gov. Nikki Haley has told the federal government South Carolina won't set up a state health exchange, saying President Obama's re-election did not change her stance.
In a letter Thursday to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Haley says Obamacare's state-based exchange programs simply pass along the burden of a new and cumbersome bureaucracy.
Haley's decision is no surprise. But Sebelius wanted to hear by Friday if states will be setting up health insurance markets under the law.
The insurance exchanges are meant to function as a one-stop online marketplace of private health plans. Under the law, states that can't or won't set up exchanges will have theirs run by Washington.
Haley says the law doesn't provide states flexibility, and too many of the program's regulations remain unknown.
(Copyright ©2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
