Joel Ario to Oversee Insurance Exchanges

August 11, 2010 – Joel Ario who was Oregon’s chief insurance regulator from 2000 to 2007 is joining the Obama administration to oversee the nation’s health insurance exchange system.

 

As director of the Office of Insurance Exchanges, Ario will help create state-based exchanges that will allow small businesses and individuals to purchase health insurance using federal subsidies that meet minimum value and quality standards.

 

Since June 2007 Ario has been insurance commissioner of Pennsylvania. In that role, he made headlines after he forced the state’s two largest insurers – Philadelphia’s Independence Blue Cross and Pittsburgh’s Highmark Inc. to withdraw their merger proposal.

 

Ario serves on the executive committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and has been vice chair of its health insurance committee. He’s also been chairman of its climate change task force.

 

He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1981 and also holds degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.