Health Insurance Marketplaces, Round II: Results and Expectations

November 14, 2014

One day after this briefing, on November 15, the second open enrollment period begins for health plans sold in federal and state marketplaces. More than 7 million people who bought insurance for 2014 can shop around for new plans or stay where they are. Those who received federal subsidies will face a redetermination process to assess their current income and other eligibility factors. Experts estimate there may be millions of new enrollees.

After the first enrollment period, which was fraught with technical problems, questions abound about how this year’s shorter enrollment period may be different. What changes have federal and state governments made to their marketplaces? Will the enrollment websites work better? What was consumers’ experience with their plans in terms of affordability and other factors? How will the health plan offerings compare to last year? Will the three-month enrollment period – half as long as last year’s – be sufficient? How will the redetermination of subsidies work?

Meena Seshamani, director of the Office of Health Reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, talked about changes to the marketplace website, outreach, and what consumers should know going into open enrollment.

Daniel Durham, executive vice president for policy and regulatory affairs, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), discussed health plan trends and innovations in benefit design.

Timothy Jost, Robert L. Willett Family Professor of Law at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, addressed the redetermination and reenrollment process, and consumer decision making in that context.

Ed Howard of the Alliance for Health Reform and Sara Collins of The Commonwealth Fund co-moderated.

Follow the briefing on Twitter: #OE2

Contact: Marilyn Serafini mserafini@allhealth.org (202)789-2300

The event was sponsored by the nonpartisan Alliance for Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund.

Transcript

Full Transcript (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Speaker Presentations

Sara R. Collins Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Daniel Durham Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Timothy Jost Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Meena Seshamani Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Event Details

Agenda (Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Speaker Biographies (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Event Resources