Health Insurance and You!

(Begining this post, we will refer to Health Insurance Exchanges, by their more colloquial name — “Connectors”).

We have previously in this blog, asked if Connectors should be regulatory or transactional entities. As a follow-up to this debate, it now appears that Republicans are squarely on the issue of Connectors being regulatory entities while Democrats favor Connectors being transactional entities.

Regardless of which side of this debate you are on, we would advance the following observations:

• If you live in a state where the state (such as Massachusetts) intends to provide subsidies for a certain section of the population or provide other benefits, then the case for connectors to serve those subsidized segments is strong.
• If you live in a state where the state provides no subsidies for any sections of the population to purchase health insurance, but however, employers may (at their will) provide subsidies – the case for connectors being employer oriented versus state oriented portals is strong. The state may still run a e-commerce style portal where consumers can shop, but exactly what value is the state adding in this scenario that private players are not already adding?

In other words, we argue that the need (or lack there-of) of a Connector should be driven by who the transacting parties are and what they need, versus ideology.