Shopping for Health Insurance at the Exchanges

With the onset of the Exchange marketplace people will have a bigger range of choices when shopping for health insurance. It should be noted that purchasing insurance from the Exchanges is not mandatory. People have the option of shopping outside the realm of state or federal Exchanges as per their preferences. In fact, during the first round of health care enrollment at the Exchanges, the emphasis would be on insuring people who don’t have access to insurance and have traditionally not been insured. This would include the poorest of people and the minorities who have been discriminated against by the highly-privatized insurance system that has been at work for the past, few decades and those who just cannot afford the most basic form of insurance.

This choice of insurance purchase is also available within the Exchange environment. Here, people are not limited to buying a typical kind of plan. Firstly, an Exchange will make ensure that certain number of benefits is deemed essential and listed across all the health plans that are listed on the Exchange showcase these minimum, basic benefits. After this, different health plans from different insurers, offering a different range of out-of-pocket expenses and coverage limitations are also on offer. People can shop for group insurance too at the Shop Exchange that is essentially like a specialist kind of Exchange that will exist as a part of the Exchange website.

There are some rules towards availing benefits at the time of buying health insurance from the state Exchanges. For starters, there is nothing like free insurance. The Exchange marketplace has not been conceived to offer free coverage. It is primarily targeted at providing insurance in the most transparent and more affordable manner. Thus, people can expect tax credits and subsidies but expecting free health insurance just doesn’t make sense.

There are certain guidelines regarding what kind of people qualify for tax credits. For instance, people need to disclose their income so that their ability to purchase the MEC or minimum essential coverage can be calculated. Based upon such calculations, personal tax credits are offered. Employers who want to purchase insurance for their employees can hope to avail the tax credits. These benefits won’t be available in the cash or check format, i.e. they will be directly credited towards the health insurance issuer. You will see the benefits reflected in the cost sharing and adjustment of your premiums.