North Carolina Lawmakers Move to Halt State’s Health Exchange

North Carolina’s General Assembly is freezing any state work on a new one-stop shop to help people buy affordable health insurance and ordering unspent federal funds returned.

Senate and House lawmakers this week filed identical bills that also make clear Medicaid coverage for poor residents can’t be expanded without their approval. A Senate committee was expected to hold hearings on the legislation Thursday.

The online marketplaces for private health insurance scheduled to open in October under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law are called health benefit exchanges. If North Carolina doesn’t create one, the federal government will run it.

But GOP lawmakers now fully in control of the Legislature say it doesn’t make sense to participate because Washington regulators will make all the rules.