With open enrollment set to begin November 1st for next year, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Monday that Iowa is withdrawing its application for a waiver under Obamacare.
The governor blamed the Affordable Care Act for failing to "provide the flexibility" the state needed in order to provide a "creative" alternative.
Iowa's waiver request was contingent upon the federal government passing through the subsidies that would have gone to the insurance companies to the state in order to help finance the program.
However, in a letter sent to State Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen October 19, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told the state that the request on its own would increase the federal deficit, which by law state waivers cannot do.
In the October 19 letter Deputy CMMS Administrator Randy Pate tells Ommen that if Iowa's waiver is approved, the state needs to appropriate money so that the waiver plan can operate.
With the waiver gone, the Reynolds administration says Medica insurance company will still sell individual health insurance policies on the Affordable Care Act insurance exhange in Iowa.