PPACA exchanges may work with agents more

Persuading low-income people that they could be eligible for free or generously subsidized coverage will take more “touches” than an ordinary health insurance sales process would normally take, Lee said.

Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., said one problem she saw in her own was enrollers expecting poor, harried, uninsured people to show up for too many in-person meetings.

In some cases, she said, a consumer might have to go to a general informational meeting, a more in-depth meeting and a one-on-one informational meeting before meeting with an assister who would actually help the consumer apply for exchange coverage.

“There were too many ‘touches,’” Lujan Grisham said.

She said the need to show up in person multiple times, and the need to make appointments, may have cut actual enrollment among the people who had to go through that process about 50 percent.

Also at the hearing: Republican lawmakers criticized some of the exchanges for failing to meet enrollment goals. Democrats accused them of being hypocritical for doing what they could to hold down enrollment while the individual exchange plan open enrollment season was under way, and then attacking the exchanges for coming in with lower-than-projected private plan enrollment totals.

See also:

• Agent groups back exchange access bills
• Agent group says they’re ignored by CMS on guidance
• Agents question Covered California numbers