Putting the Insurance Marketplace IT Glitches into Perspective
<p>The health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act opened for business today, introducing people who are uninsured or who buy coverage on their own to a new way to shop for coverage. </p><p>In a new <a href="/blog/2013/marketplace-it-glitches-sky-not-falling">blog post,</a> Kevin Lucia, Sabrina Corlette, and Sarah Dash of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute's Center on Health Insurance Reforms explain that making marketplaces a seamless one-stop shop for obtaining coverage depends largely on new IT systems that operationalize numerous decisions, provide real-time eligibility assessments, enroll people in appropriate coverage, and ensure premiums are paid correctly. Getting these systems right—under very tight deadlines—is an enormous task. <br />
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Like all start-ups, the marketplaces are sure to experience IT glitches, especially right after launch. But the authors remind us that "for consumers who have long been shut out of the insurance system because of a preexisting health condition or an inability to afford insurance that covers their medical needs, the marketplaces open the door to a new era of consumer-focused health insurance." </p>