In a blog post, Kevin Lucia, Sabrina Corlette, and Sarah Dash of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute's Center on Health Insurance Reforms explain that making the health insurance marketplaces a seamless one-stop shop for obtaining coverage depends largely on new IT systems that operationalize numerous decisions, provide real-time eligibility assessments, enroll people in appropriate coverage, and ensure premiums are paid correctly. Getting these systems right is an enormous task.
Like all start-ups, the marketplaces are sure to continue to experience IT glitches. But the authors remind us that "for consumers who have long been shut out of the insurance system because of a preexisting health condition or an inability to afford insurance that covers their medical needs, the marketplaces open the door to a new era of consumer-focused health insurance."