Questions about President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law are still looming in both Ohio and West Virginia.

The federal law calls on states to set basic levels of services that insurance policies must cover. The overhaul requires 10 basic categories of services. They include prescription drugs and maternity care, but West Virginia officials say they need more information before they can set benefit level benchmarks.

W.Va. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin wrote U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday. Tomblin's letter cites the lack of final federal rules for these essential health benefits. It also notes that federal officials have yet to answer West Virginia's questions about expanding Medicaid.

Tomblin quizzed Sebelius regarding that provision of the health care law in July. Friday's letter poses seven additional questions addressing essential health benefits.

In Ohio, a consumer coalition is urging the state to discuss its plans to inform Ohioans about a key part of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law.

Open enrollment in new private health insurance markets called exchanges starts a year from Monday with coverage kicking in Jan. 1, 2014. Exchanges are online markets in which individual consumers and small businesses will shop for health insurance among competing private plans.

States face a Nov. 16 deadline to submit plans to the federal government for running an exchange. Gov. John Kasich says he's leaning toward a federally-facilitated exchange.

Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage says Ohio should have people with roots in minority communities and elsewhere explain exchanges.

The Kasich administration says those details have yet to be determined.