PPACA Marketplaces: Preparing to Buy Health Insurance from Exchanges

The exchanges are just a few months away and soon you will be treated to an entirely new way of buying health insurance. The health exchanges shouldn’t be confused with private health exchanges. The latter are online entities run by private insurers who will follow the ACA norms but won’t offer health coverage as discounted as on the state exchanges. Usually, the word “exchanges” refers to online marketplaces run by the state government according to mandates of the federal government.

Starting October 1, you can expect your state to launch an online health exchange. Here, you will be able to browse through all sorts of health plans, from the most basic ones to the most comprehensive coverage options. Some plans will just about cover the EHB to ensure that you have minimum essential coverage to escape federal penalization. Some health plans, like those listed in the platinum category, will offer the most exhaustive coverage albeit with the highest amount of premiums.

Your state’s health exchange should look like a health insurance search engine where you should be able to find health plans across different categories and parameters with a few clicks. This applies even if you are an employer searching for health plan for your employees. In fact, a specialized space within the state exchange domain is expected to be dedicated to employer-sponsored coverage, called shop exchanges.

The exchanges will often assistance even if you don’t want to purchase insurance, i.e. you are merely seeking guidance or information. This will be made possible via online tools like a Medicare quote engine that will instantly tell you about your out-of-pocket expenses for your type of Medicare plan. If you want to find out about cost sharing across CHIP or Medicaid, the navigators on the exchanges will be available on call or email to help you.

Finding out your cost for coverage would be rather easy with a host of free tools like an insurance quote engine. Here, you would need to provide the most details such as age, gender, employment status, area of residence, household income, etc. to get a very precise quote on how much a health plan will cost you in terms of premiums or out-of-pocket expenses. 

The exchange’s calculator will also tell whether you are eligible for a subsidy or a tax credit. The subsidies will be paid towards the health insurance premium payments and not routed to your bank account. The entire process would be regulated by the exchange itself, meaning you would merely need to provide honest details and make a choice of health plan.