Insurance Exchanges

One in four consumers who will apply for health coverage through the new health insurance marketplaces speak a language other than English at home. The Affordable Care Act and federal civil rights laws require marketplaces to provide language services for people with limited English proficiency (LEP). It is critical that marketplaces develop robust standards to ensure that these language services enable LEP consumers to successfully enroll in, use, and retain coverage. This checklist provides a list of recommendations that advocates can use to encourage their states to address the needs of LEP consumers in their health insurance marketplace.

To foster competition among health plans featured in the insurance exchanges, the ACA requires that at least two participating plans be multi-state health plans—plans that can cross state lines and be sold nationwide. In this updated implementation brief, the authors review the final Multi-State Plan Program regulations and outline key questions, including how the plans will work under conflicting state laws, and how the plans will be phased into the market.

With the arrival of the insurance exchanges, an estimated 22 million people will have the opportunity to choose their coverage through an exchange.  Exchange leaders have a critical role to play in supporting consumers in their search for high quality, affordable options that best meet their individual needs. The Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH) has created a set of resources that exchanges can use as they build their consumer choice decision support.

This brief discusses some of the key policy decisions states are making and briefly describes these programs in a handful of states. This brief is not intended to offer comprehensive examination of all state activity, but rather provides a snapshot of key decisions in a few states. States were included in this snapshot if they had released a detailed RFP or other policy documents describing how these assistance programs would be structured.

To spur competition among plans, the ACA created the Multi-state Plan Program (MSPP). The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which administers health insurance programs for federal employees and members of Congress, will certify and oversee health insurance issuers to offer at least two plans in every state exchange. This policy brief explores the background of the MSPP, the challenges facing OPM in administering it, and the issues associated with offering health insurance plans in multiple states.