State health care exchange should preserve choice

Even as the new health care law heads for the U.S. Supreme Court where it faces an uncertain future, Washington state is moving forward with its $23 million effort to design and implement a health care exchange.

State health care exchanges, mandated by the federal law, must be in place by 2014. They were billed as a way to promote competition and provide access to subsidies for qualified consumers.

While each state is supposed to design its own health care exchange, exchanges seem to fall into two categories: open-market and active purchaser.

Open-market exchanges are like a virtual marketplac...