Americans seeking help for health exchange purchases

While people in our online world have grown to appreciate all the decisions they can make by themselves, when it comes to health care, they’d apparently still like a little guidance.

The most recent LIMRA survey reveals that approximately 60% of Americans who have used health exchanges so far to try to shop for health coverage say they looked for help when actually buying their health insurance plan.

Almost half of those who plan to shop or are currently undecided on using a health exchange say they’ll definitely need help with the process.

Some 59% of the 2,000-plus consumers surveyed said they anticipate they’ll need help in finding a cost-effective plan, and more than half also said they would need help understanding the various options and other factors including eligibility, what plan might best need their needs and how the entire system is going to work.

The survey also found that those shoppers who already have health insurance were more likely to seek out help than those who are currently uninsured – they’ve already discovered some of the various, occasionally infuriating factors that differentiate plans and coverage, such as deductibles and covered expenses – whereas the presently uninsured may not recognize how much help they’ll need getting the ball rolling on even basic decisions.

“Obviously, the highly publicized technical challenges experienced by the online exchanges influenced some Americans’ views on the level of help they will need and deterred others from shopping and purchasing health insurance at all,” said Yuliya Babuskina, senior analyst with LIMRA’s Group Insurance Research. “Our study found that more than a quarter of the targeted market – uninsured consumers – said they did not plan to shop at the exchanges, citing cost as the number one reason.”

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