{"id":186,"date":"2012-07-07T00:32:03","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T00:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"\/articles\/?p=186"},"modified":"2013-05-13T16:13:14","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T16:13:14","slug":"what-is-a-health-care-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/analysis\/health-care-reform.php","title":{"rendered":"What is a Health Care Exchange?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act makes its implementation much more certain.\u00a0 Barring repeal by a new Congress and new President, a new health insurance system will be in full implementation by 2014.\u00a0 In this article we are going to examine one of the most talked about, and least understood, new provisions \u2013 Health Care Exchanges.<\/p>\n<p>So what do we know about Health Care Exchanges?\u00a0 We know that Maryland is, according to the <em>Maryland Community Gazette<\/em>, \u201cOut in front on health care reform\u201d and that \u201cState leaders were wise in setting up an exchange\u201d.\u00a0 We also know that Louisiana in the words of Governor Bobby Jindal, \u201cwill not set up an exchange\u201d despite the Supreme Court decision.\u00a0 So now we know it\u2019s controversial, but what exactly is a Health Care Exchange and why should the average consumer care?<\/p>\n<p>A Health Care Exchange at its core is just a website.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s a web site very similar to Health Insurance Online.\u00a0 It\u2019s a place where you can compare competing health insurance plans from different carriers.\u00a0 Here are some important factors to consider:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Each state is eligible to set up its own exchange.\u00a0 Some may and some may not.\u00a0 If a state does not consumers in that state will be able to use a federal health care exchange site.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0The plans must meet the minimum standards of the Affordable Care Act.\u00a0 That means the plans may be very different than the types of plans you see now on our site.<\/li>\n<li>There will be four levels of plans divided into nifty metallic categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.\u00a0 Of course just like the metals themselves the plans cost more based on their value \u2013 in health insurance terms that means coverage.<\/li>\n<li>Unlike today, if you don\u2019t have a government approved health insurance plan from some other source \u2013 like an employer \u2013 you MUST purchase one of the Exchange plans.<\/li>\n<li>Consumers that have to purchase a health insurance plan but can\u2019t afford to pay for it will be subsidized through a complex formula of cost-sharing and premium subsidies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So now we know that a Health Care Exchange is really a shopping comparison engine like Health insurance Online, Travelocity, and Orbitz why all the fuss?\u00a0 The refusal of some states to build an exchange is more of a political statement than anything else.\u00a0 The Exchange is coming and you are probably going to have to use one, so get ready.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What in the world is a Health Care Exchange?  We clear out the existential clutter and describe what you the consumer will physically see and how it will actually work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}