Report shows interest increasing for individual and group health insurance exchanges

Insurance NewsJD Power and Associates has released its 2012 U.S. Member Health Plan Study and it revealed that in the face of the impact of the reforms to healthcare, almost four in every ten members of an employee sponsored health plan have said that they would use a health insurance exchange to shop for their insurance coverage if the opportunity was available.

This is now the sixth study of its kind, which measures the satisfaction among the members of 141 different health plans within 17 American regions by looking into seven specific primary factors: provider choice, coverage and benefits, claims processing, information and communication, approval process, statements, and customer service.

Most members (55 percent) of health plans who buy their own individual insurance have also said that they would probably use one of the health insurance exchanges provided by the state. A significant number of individuals (39 percent) who are insured under an employer-sponsored program have also indicated that they would be using the insurance exchange to shop if it were to become available.

Moreover, the study has also found that the amount of interest in those exchanges, when compared to 2011, have increased. In fact, in the most recent study, only 37 percent of members of a health plan said that they would be unlikely to use a state insurance exchange, which is much lower than last year, when 50 percent had said that they felt that their employer-sponsored coverage would continue.

This indicates that health insurance exchanges are growing in their appeal for individuals both who must buy their own coverage as well as those who already have coverage sponsored by their employers.

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