Nevada, citing lack of consumer choice and availability of data to the state, is exiting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) online exchange — Healthcare.gov — in favor of setting up its own online exchange by 2020.
Nevada Exchange Director Heather Korbulic
Other states like Oregon, facing the technical challenge of setting up their own exchange, have gone the opposite route and scurried back to the federal mechanism.
Not Nevada. On Aug. 14, Nevada Heath Link announced a contract with GetInsured, a company that manages health insurance marketplaces in seven other states, to set up the state-run system in Nevada.
“We … believe this is a chance for us to control our own destiny by managing our own marketplace,” Nevada Health Link Executive Director Heather Korbulic explained. “We have seen the limitations that come with working with the [federal system]. There is very little flexibility given to states. Any small change we request to try to tailor the system is almost impossible to accomplish.
“There is also a lack of insight into our own state’s data,” Korbulic added. “Without data, we have no sense of who our consumers are at any given moment. We are periodically provided ZIP code-level data breakdowns from CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] during the year but, for the most part, we do not know who is actively engaged in the system during the open enrollment season or other detailed information necessary to conduct truly targeted outreach. We think there are budgetary efficiencies to be found by having access to our own data.”
Nevada is currently one of five states that operate a hybrid model – a state-based marketplace that uses the federal platform. The other states either rely entirely on the federal exchange or operate their own self-sustaining exchanges. Nevada is seeking to join this latter group.