One of the Affordable Care Act’s goals is to encourage carriers in the new health insurance marketplaces to compete not on how well they avoid risk but on how much value they provide to consumers. In a new Commonwealth Fund issue brief, Katherine Swartz, Mark A. Hall, and Timothy S. Jost examine six states—Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Maryland, Montana, and Texas—to see how carriers there are competing now that people can’t be denied coverage based on health status.