This opinion piece appeared in The Hill.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced welcome new guidance to states looking to improve their health care and health insurance systems through “state innovation waivers” under Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The new guidance gives states significantly more flexibility to devise creative solutions to meet the health care and insurance needs of their constituents and it builds upon new community engagement waivers that made Medicaid more flexible for states earlier this year.

Section 1332 allows states to experiment and creatively tailor their health care coverage programs under certain conditions — provided that D.C. approves their “waiver” proposals. The Obama administration had taken a crabbed view of innovation waivers and issued rules that made it impossible for states to seek active reforms.

Several states such as: Oklahoma, Iowa and Ohio, requested waivers that would have offered more affordable health insurance, but were denied under the Obama administration’s rules, leaving them stuck with failing health insurance markets, rising premiums and falling participation rates.

President Trump has taken a decidedly broader view of the states’ role in meeting the needs of their citizens. The announcement rewriting the restrictive Obama-era guidance restores Section 1332 to its rightful place under the law and extends a long overdue invitation for states to rejoin the national discussion on health care.

States may be understandably skittish to file new waiver requests after years of being spurned by Washington, but now is the time for state governors, legislatures and policymakers to answer Trump’s invitation and devise creative, responsible and workable solutions.

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