He did it!!! Today at noon, Governor Cuomo issued an Executive Order to establish a New York State Health Insurance Exchange (#42).

It’s been a long and rocky road in getting this thing established.  And, while this has proved to be a contentious issue in our state legislature, no amount of partisan folly can deny that this is New York’s best shot at cutting costs and making the health insurance market work for our state’s working families and small businesses.

While an Executive Order is not the best scenario we could have hoped for, we’re happy to see that Governor Cuomo has held his ground on this issue and is moving forward to address the long-standing problems that have plagued our health insurance market.

It looks like the Exchange will be housed in the Department of Health and will have regional advisory committees consisting of “consumer advocates, small business consumer representatives, health care providers, agents, brokers, insurers, labor organizations, and any other appropriate stakeholders.”  These committees will “provide advice and make recommendations on the establishment and operation of the Exchange, including recommendations about relevant regional factors, and shall provide opportunities for public input on such matters.”

We’ll keep you posted when we know more about how this will play out, but for now let’s just all take a moment to sit back and breathe a BIG sigh of relief!

 A copy of the Governor’s press release and Executive Order can be found by clicking here.