Benefit plan design

CMS is communicating minimally with the thousands of insurance brokers who went through training for the 36 federally-run exchanges, while prominent ACA spokespeople — including the president — repeatedly fail to mention brokers as a viable exchange information source.

With the online site expected to face difficulties through November, Americans may have only weeks to find replacement coverage, and many may end up paying higher premiums.

With the online site expected to face difficulties through November, Americans may have only weeks to find replacement coverage, and many may end up paying higher premiums.

While the rest of the country was trying to access exchange websites on Oct. 1 and having no luck, something remarkable happened in Connecticut.

Eager to meet client needs - and keep their business - brokers hunt for info on exchanges.

A 40% excise tax on co-called Cadillac coverage under the Affordable Care Act will not be assessed until 2018, which gives employers time to tweak their plan design, but now there’s concern that platinum-level health insurance might disappear from public exchanges.

More than 300,000 people have visited Kentucky’s health-care exchange website, and more than 26,000 people have signed up for plans, with 10,000 more “in the process of choosing,” Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said.

Despite a CMS report Friday that nearly half of all applications completed so far are from the federally-run state exchanges, brokers on the front lines have a different perspective.

Daily unique visitors to Healthcare.gov have steadily and dramatically declined since the site’s launch, according to data from Internet analytics company comScore.

Just how will the fight in Congress over health exchange website glitches pan out? EBA spoke with former Capitol Hill staffer Drew Crouch, now director of government relations at Buck Consultants, about potential Republican strategies — and if tax reform that would impact employee benefits might still be on the table for this year.

According to a national survey conducted by Pew Research, nearly 50% of those polled said they did not believe that the online insurance exchanges were working well. But when asked for details on actually using an online exchange, 56% of those who’d visited one said they’d personally found the site easy to use.

“All that we are doing with health care impacts so much more than health care costs, health risk status and use of health care services – it impacts the business,” explained Bruce Sherman, MD, medical director of Employers Health Coalition.

In this list of key Obamacare provisions effective for the plan year beginning this January, which ones apply to you, and are you ready?

The state-run exchanges in Washington and Kentucky have received positive press about their websites working in comparison to the federal, but brokers haven’t had much hand in the success.

Acknowledging Thursday that the exchange system “wasn’t tested enough,” CMS’ director of communications responded to issues brought up by government contractors earlier in the day on Capitol Hill.

Health care fraud will come at employers at an alarming rate, in part because the Affordable Care Act opens insurance up to millions of people who have little or no experience buying health insurance, says fraud expert Chuck Whitlock.

Lawmakers grilled four government contractors Thursday morning on the Healthcare.gov glitches. CGI Group, the lead software developer for the 36 federally-run exchanges, acknowledged the problems but asserted that the final choice to "go live" on Oct. 1 was up to the CMS.

To repair its troubled health care website, the Obama administration may need to add project workers with fresh talent, take portions of the system off line for days or weeks, and conduct more comprehensive tests to prevent crashes and delays, technology experts say.

Avalere Health’s Elizabeth Carpenter urges everyone to remember the big picture, not just the Obamacare marketplace, “but also on the broader health care system and how things are evolving.”

A recent survey conducted by the National Business Group on Health shows surprisingly different results about employee ACA knowledge than a similar poll the organization commissioned in the summer.