Modern Healthcare interviewed Manatt's Joel Ario, a managing director with Manatt Health Solutions, for an article on why the Obama administration is encouraging consumers to shop on the federal and state insurance exchanges, even if they're happy with the plan they purchased in 2014.
As reported by Modern Healthcare, new data from the Obama administration concludes that consumers shopping on the exchanges can generally expect more options and often a better deal. Although there has been an overall 25% increase in the number of issuers participating during the second enrollment period, some states have seen a modest drop in plan options. Conservative political leaders in those states are generally hostile to the Affordable Care Act, but industry insiders think the decline is a matter of business and not politics.
"The reduction in plans may reflect a self-enforcement of the meaningful-difference standard, which requires that different plans at the same metal level actually have more than trivial or confusing differences," said Ario.
Read the article here.