Government officials are hoping 254,095 health insurance agents and brokers will sign up to work with the new federal health insurance exchange (HIX) system.
Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), talk a little about how they expect producers to work with the exchanges in a notice (CMS-10464) set to appear in the Federal Register Thursday.
Opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) are still trying to repeal PPACA or get the courts to block implementation of part or all of the act.
If the act works as drafters expect, it’s supposed to create a new HIX program, or health insurance supermarket system, for individuals and small employers.
Some states want to run their own exchanges. In other states, CMS will be running “federally facilitated exchanges” (FFEs) .
The federal Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 gives members of the public a chance to comment whenever CMS begins a major new effort to collect information.
The CMS is now asking for comments on its plans to collect information about insurance producers through an FFE producer registration process.