Feds Will Rely On Technology To Implement Health Bill
The historic health care reform bill President Obama signed into law Tuesday calls for development of state health care exchanges that eventually will allow Americans to compare insurance through Web portals as easily as they price and book airline tickets, Nextgov.com reported.
The exchanges, as the president outlined in a June 2, 2009, letter to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., a decades-long champion of universal health care, will create 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."
The exchanges, which will provide coverage to individuals and small businesses not covered by plans offered by larger employers or the federal government's Medicare program for the elderly, will become fully operational in 2014. But language in the 906-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act directs the Health and Human Services Department to consult with states to set up by a Web site no later than July 1 that will allow the public to search for the most affordable health coverage.
HHS is required to develop a template for portals that states can use by 2014. By that time, states must establish their own health insurance portal sites that individuals can use to compare health insurance policies that states have certified as qualified health care plans. The exchanges also will serve as a guide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for eligible individuals. The law also mandates that HHS develop a rating system for health plans using quality and price as the criteria, and post the information on the state health portals.
States can choose to have their exchanges managed by a government body or by a nonprofit organization that they form. In addition, states can set up two exchanges in 2014, one that serves individuals and another that small businesses use, or they can form one exchange to serve both groups. To read more, click here.
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