Anger over limited choice of doctors and hospitals in Obamacare plans is prompting some states to require broader networks — and boiling up as yet another election year headache for the health law…

“People have to recognize it’s a trade-off, and I’m not sure they do yet,” said Matt Eyles, an insurance expert at the Avalere Health consulting firm. “Broader access comes at a cost, and what’s the right balance between access and cost is an age-old question in health care.”

The Affordable Care Act sets out general guidelines directing insurers to include enough doctors and hospitals to provide timely access to care, including specialty care. But it does not spell out what that means, leaving it to states to fill in the blanks.

So far, just a handful of states have moved to ratchet up their standards. They’re mostly blue states that built their own Obamacare exchanges, including Connecticut, New York, Washington and California. But since the beginning of 2013, more than 70 bills have been introduced in 22 states to clarify the network rules, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.