Georgia announces its own healthcare insurance portal

After failing to win federal approval to exit the federal insurance marketplace last year, Georgia has established its own health-insurance portal directing people to private insurers and brokers to buy health insurance.

The new website, called Georgia Access, includes links to 10 health-insurance companies - including big players such as United, Kaiser Permanente, and Aetna - as well as seven online brokers, organizations that help people shop for and enroll in health insurance.

The dueling state and federal websites each offer a different route to the same destination: signing up for health insurance.

Georgians can use the links on GeorgiaAccess.gov to explore the insurance companies' and brokers' offerings, which include but are not limited to the same marketplace plans offered on the federal website.

The new Georgia Access site also includes links to companies and brokers that offer dental and vision plans, basic information about Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids, and links to state health-care agencies that assist with mental health.

But notably absent from the state's new portal is a link to the federal HealthCare.gov, a one-stop shop for buying health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. The HealthCare.gov website provides comparisons of the different companies' health plans.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp first sought permission to exit the federal health insurance marketplace back in 2020. But the Biden administration rejected the Georgia plan last year after analyses showed it would cover fewer, not more, Georgians than the federal marketplace.

According to Georgia Access, 1.3 million Georgians lack health insurance. Open enrollment for marketplace plans ends on Jan. 15. That gives Georgians less than two more weeks to select their plans for this year, whether through the links provided on GeorgiaAccess.gov or the federal HealthCare. gov. This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.