Major Policy Changes Take a Backseat to IT in Transitional Year for Health Insurance Marketplaces
As we near the second year of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces, few additional states have moved to establish their own marketplaces or make bold policy changes. Instead, information technology (IT) fixes have dominated operational decisions. So far, only 16 states and the District of Columbia have established their own marketplaces.<br /><br />In a <a href="/blog/2014/major-policy-changes-take-backseat-it-during-transitional-year-health-insurance">new blog post,</a> Sarah Dash of the Alliance for Health Reform and Kevin Lucia of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Reform take a close look at state marketplace technology transitions. The researchers report that for the 2014–15 open enrollment period, at least seven states—Hawaii, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Vermont—will be using a different IT platform or vendor than last year.<br />
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Read the post to learn what the transitions mean for eligibility and enrollment, plan renewals, and state policy decisions.