Hooray! Based on the first state reports, more health insurers will enter more ACA state exchanges in 2015 than in 2014. In Illinois, for example, as Peter Frost reports in the Chicago Tribune, six insurers offered a total of 120 health plans in the state in 2014, whereas in 2015, eight companies (with ten brand names) will offer 306 plans.
That's good, right? Well, more competition should mean better prices, and perhaps force constructive creativity in plan design. From a consumer shopping standpoint, though, how much choice is too much? What will a state marketplace with 300 plans look like?
The first thing to recognize is that the market is different in each county, and no county will offer 306 plans. This year, with 120 plans sold in the state as a whole, Cook County, home of Chicago, had 65 plans on offer.* Other Illinois counties that I tested at random had between 36 and 51 plans. (That's a lot. By my count, Los Angeles, CA had 36 plans on offer this year.) Extrapolating, Cook County may have 160+ plans posted next year, sorted into the four metal tiers plus catastrophic.
That's good, right? Well, more competition should mean better prices, and perhaps force constructive creativity in plan design. From a consumer shopping standpoint, though, how much choice is too much? What will a state marketplace with 300 plans look like?
The first thing to recognize is that the market is different in each county, and no county will offer 306 plans. This year, with 120 plans sold in the state as a whole, Cook County, home of Chicago, had 65 plans on offer.* Other Illinois counties that I tested at random had between 36 and 51 plans. (That's a lot. By my count, Los Angeles, CA had 36 plans on offer this year.) Extrapolating, Cook County may have 160+ plans posted next year, sorted into the four metal tiers plus catastrophic.
