Managers of the Affordable Care Act public health insurance program in Nevada are facing the same kind of confusion about the 2018 market that's plaguing ordinary insurance agents and brokers.
Heather Korbulic, the executive director of Nevada's Silver State Health Insurance program, talks about the confusion in a monthly update she prepared for an upcoming program board meeting.
Korbulic says she and colleagues at other state-based ACA exchange programs have been asking the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services questions about how the 2018 individual major medical open enrollment period might work.
"I have yet to receive any answers to my questions, or indication as to when we will receive answers," Korbulic writes in the update.
HealthCare.gov Basics
Nevada started out trying to offer a state-based, state-operated ACA public exchange program. The state had trouble getting its exchange enrollment and account administration services to work smoothly, and it's now leasing use of systems operated by HealthCare.gov to power its exchange, which does business as the Nevada Health Link exchange.
The drafters of the ACA created the exchange system to give consumers a standardized, web-based way to shop for health coverage, and to administer the ACA premium tax credit and cost-sharing reduction subsidy programs.
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established HealthCare.gov to provide ACA exchange services in states that are unwilling or unable to handle the jobs themselves.
Open Enrollment Period System
The ACA prohibits insurers from considering individual health conditions when deciding whether to sell people coverage, or from considering individual health factors other than age, location and tobacco use when setting prices for coverage.