States, as well as coalitions of states, will compete for the two-year "Early Innovator" grants, which will help defray the cost of developing and implementing information technology infrastructure for establishing the exchanges, HHS said.
The models developed by grant recipients will then be made available for other states to use to set up their exchanges.
"The states have told us that they don't want to all have to reinvent the wheel on each aspect of the exchange," Joel Ario, HHS director of health insurance exchanges, said on a conference call with reporters.
He said the grants will be awarded by Feb. 15 and will go to states that have "ambitious-yet-achievable proposals that can yield IT models that can serve as best practices."
HHS has not determined how much money grant recipients will receive, Ario said, explaining that the department will look to states to determine how much their proposals would cost.
The health legislation Congress passed last spring calls for states to have the insurance exchanges -- which are envisioned as websites to compare insurance plans -- up and running by 2014.
Some states have complained that developing the technology infrastructure to operate the exchanges could be time-consuming and expensive.
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