Summer reading: Exchange Games

America’s Health Insurance Plans, the National Association of Health Underwriters and other health and benefits groups are getting ready to hold their last big annual meetings before Jan. 1, 2014.

Hundreds of agents, brokers, consultants, actuaries, strategic planners and other local fonts of PPACA wisdom will be heading to the meetings in an effort to get information they can use to protect just how the major Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange and private health insurance provisions will or won’t affect health carriers, producers, benefit plan managers, employers, consumers, patients, physicians, hospitals, advertising agencies, makers of novelty keychains, and others.

Accenture and Truven Health Analytics are two examples of companies that have released PPACA exchange forecasts in time for the summer conference prep season.

Suzanne Collins hooked readers of The Hunger Games series with tales of a gladiatorial-style reality TV show set in the distant future.

Accenture analysts are hoping to hook health policy readers with tales of a gladiatorial-style contest — the birth of the PPACA exchanges — start about seven months from now.

The analysts note that employer plans cover 170 million people today.

In 2014, about 9 million of those people could get coverage through a PPACA group coverage exchange, and 1 million could get coverage through a private group coverage exchange, the analysts estimate.

By 2018, public group exchange enrollment could climb to 31 million lives, and private group exchange enrollment could grow to 40 million lives, the analysts say.

One reason to think that growth could be rapid is consumers’ lack of awareness of the private exchange model, the analysts say.

“Once presented with the concept, 85 percent of those surveyed expressed a neutral to positive outlook,” the analysts say. “Respondents are attracted to choice, flexibility, the personalized product selection, and the shopping experience.”