The Obama administration is rolling out new features on healthcare.gov to help consumers choose their Obamacare plans, as more data shows that most enrollees are shopping around for the lowest price.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Friday that it will implement a feature to enable consumers to quickly compare healthcare plans and offer quality ratings on the plans offered on healthcare.gov, which residents in 38 states use to buy Obamacare.
The Simple Choice plans program will provide consumers a way to easily compare plans, said Kevin Counihan, CEO of healthcare.gov.
“These are plans that have a uniform set of features – enabling consumers to compare plans on fewer important plan factors like monthly premiums and providers in the plan’s network with the confidence of knowing that the benefits won’t vary from plan to plan,” he said.
Another new feature that will be added is a rating system that can show consumers about the “quality of healthcare services and enrollee experience” of plans offered on the Obamacare marketplace, Counihan said.
For the 2017 open enrollment period, which will stretch from November to January, CMS will use a five-star rating scale for judging plans.
The rating system will not be available in all states, as CMS will do a pilot program for 2017 in several states that include Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The emphasis to help consumers shop for a new plan comes as new data from the latest open enrollment shows consumers are shopping a lot for a new plan.
A federal report showed that 67 percent of healthcare.gov consumers selected a new plan in 2016 open enrollment.
