Health insurance marketplace

Health insurance marketplaces, also called health exchanges, are organizations in each state through which people can purchase health insurance. In the United States, people can purchase health insurance that complies with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, known colloquially as "Obamacare") at ACA health exchanges, where they can choose from a range of government-regulated and standardized health care plans offered by the insurers participating in the exchange. ACA health exchanges were fully certified and operational by January 1, 2014, under federal law. Enrollment in the marketplaces started on October 1, 2013, and continued for six months. As of April 19, 2014, 8.02 million people had signed up through the health insurance marketplaces. An additional 4.8 million joined Medicaid. Enrollment for 2015 began on November 15, 2014, and ended on December 15, 2014. As of April 14, 2020, 11.41 million people had signed up through the health insurance marketplaces. Private non-ACA health care exchanges also exist in many states, responsible for enrolling 3 million people. These exchanges predate the Affordable Care Act and facilitate insurance plans for employees of small and medium size businesses.

Background Health insurance exchanges in the United States expand insurance coverage while allowing insurers to compete in cost-efficient ways and help them to comply with consumer protection laws. Exchanges are not themselves insurers, so they do not bear risk themselves, but they do determine which insurance companies participate in the exchange. An ideal exchange promotes insurance transparency and accountability, facilitates increased enrollment and delivery of subsidies, and helps spread risk to ensure that the costs associated with expensive medical treatments are shared more broadly across large groups of people, rather than spread across just a few beneficiaries. Health insurance exchanges use electronic data interchange (EDI) to transmit required information between the exchanges and carriers (trading partners), in particular the 834 transaction for enrollment information and the 820 transaction for premium payment.

History

Health exchanges first emerged in the private sector in the early 1980s. They used computer networking to integrate claims management, eligibility verification, and inter-carrier payments. These became popular in some regions as a way for small and medium-sized businesses to pool their purchasing power into larger groups, reducing cost. An additional advantage was the ability of small businesses to offer a range of plans to employees, allowing them to compete with larger corporations. The largest such exchange prior to the ACA was CaliforniaChoice, established in 1996. By 2000, CaliforniaChoice's membership included 140,000 individuals from 9000 business groups. Obamacare maintained the concept of health insurance exchanges as a key component of health care. President Obama stated that it should be "a market where Americans can one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose the plan that's best for them, in the same way that Members of Congress and their families can. None of these plans should deny coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition, and all of these plans should include an affordable basic benefit package that includes prevention, and protection against catastrophic costs. I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest." Although the House of Representatives had sought a single national exchange as well as a public option, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) as passed used state-based exchanges, and the public option was ultimately dropped from the bill after it did not win filibuster-proof support in the Senate. States may choose to join together to run multi-state exchanges, or they may opt out of running their own exchange, in which case the federal government will step in to create an exchange for use by their citizens. ACA was signed into law on March 23, 2010. The law required that health insurance exchanges commence operation in every state on October 1, 2013. In the first year of operation, open enrollment on the exchanges ran from October 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014, and insurance plans purchased by December 15, 2013, began coverage on January 1, 2014. For 2015 open enrollment began on November 15, 2014, and ended on February 15, 2015.

Initial launch On the date the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was enacted, only a few health insurance exchanges across the country were up and running. Among them were the Massachusetts Health Connector, the New York HealthPass - a non-profit exchange, and the Utah Health Exchange. Advocates claim these exchanges make these "markets" more efficient, providing oversight and structure, arguing that previous health insurance markets in the United States are poorly-organized and deal with wide variations in coverages and requirements among different companies, employers, and policies. It was unknown how many people in total successfully enrolled in the first week. The federal marketplace website was scheduled for maintenance on the weekend. CGI Group came under media scrutiny as a developer behind several marketplace websites, after numerous issues surfaced with the federal health insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov. On October 1, 2013, the state-run marketplaces also opened to the public, and some of them reported first statistics. During the first week of enrollment:

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