Many “small defects” found in SHOP before rollout

Will it be the inaugural year of HealthCare.gov all over again? Reports suggest problems with the small business exchange.

Insurance News

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The White House has discovered a number of issues with SHOP, the online marketplace offering health insurance to the critical small business demographic, the New York Times reported this weekend.

The website, intended to allow employers of fewer than 50 workers sign up for health insurance, is intended to go live on Nov. 15, but several defects in the site could derail that process for agents and brokers looking to assist clients.

Some health insurance plans approved for sale are not showing up on the website for example, while users of Internet Explorer or Firefox could encounter difficulties accessing the site at all—Chrome, it seems, is fine. Premiums and other charges were also sometimes displayed as percentages rather than dollar amounts, and for some accounts, the principal subscriber is listed as a dependent.

Problems with the agent and broker portal for small business clients have also surfaced. Emily Black Bremer, president of the Missouri Association of Health Underwriters, told the Times she was unable to log in.

“I tried it for myself,” Bremer said. “I could not get in with my user name and password. There was an authentication issue with my login that caused a glitch.”

These issues surfaced as testing for SHOP began in Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey and Ohio this week. Obama administration officials say they are working “around the clock” to fix the problems and anticipate tackling most before the Nov. 15 opening in a fortnight.

“We can’t afford another bad rollout,” stressed Rep. Janice Hahn of California, the senior Democrat on the healthcare panel of the House Small Business Committee.

SHOP has experienced a decidedly lackluster beginning, with just 1,700 companies enrolling with the small-business exchange in California and 190 employers in Minnesota.

The issue of whether small businesses—which are not required to offer health insurance under the Affordable Care Act—will show up at all is also at the forefront of producers’ minds.

Reports from key insurance providers like Aetna and Kaiser suggest that the small business market is noticeably less lucrative since the advent of health reform, with number two American insurer WellPoint Inc. noting that it has lost 300,000 policyholders since the beginning of the year.

These companies instead are choosing to send workers to the individual insurance exchange—something that may result in lower costs for employees but translates into less commission for agents.

Small businesses were able to buy insurance last year through paper exchanges with the federal exchange, though administration officials are unsure how many have done so. Tax credits are available to certain qualifying employers, though the “medal level” of health plans available to individuals is absent from the SHOP exchange.

Are you optimistic for the rollout of small business exchanges? Tell us in the comments below.
 

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