Exchange success not determined by red or blue state color

Contrary to expectations, the latest findings from healthcare researcher Decision Resources Group reveal that several of the state-based health insurance exchanges that were expected to perform the best are performing quite poorly, while some of the exchanges in Republican-dominated states openly hostile to the Affordable Care Act have fared surprisingly well to date.

Through February 1, Decision Resources reports that nearly 3.3 million people have enrolled in health insurance exchange policies nationwide, with the number exceeding 100,000 in eight states. Two of these are state-run exchanges in Democratic strongholds—California and New York—and were expected to succeed. But the other six—Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas—are federally-run exchanges in Republican dominated states where the expectations were much lower.