Christmas came early for Arizona when it received a $30 million grant from the federal government to implement a state health insurance exchange. Sort of. They say time is money. Here’s hoping they’re right, because time is the one thing every state needs to get a functioning exchange established.

SLHI staff just returned from Washington DC, where we heard what people close to Arizona’s situation having been saying for months: establishing an online health insurance marketplace by January 2014 is a gargantuan task. Not the least of the concerns are logistical, information technology and implementation issues that have all states wringing their hands.

With up to one millon Arizonans projected to use such a marketplace to compare and purchase federally-subsidized insurance, there’s little question that a health insurance exchange of some type can help to increase coverage. However, there are plenty of questions as to how we’ll get there.