New Managed Care Data Have Been Reported by Investigators at Harvard University (Marketplace Health Insurance Ratings: Most Potential Enrollees Have Access To Plans of Medium or High Quality): Managed Care

Health Policy and Law Daily

2022 JUN 23 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- New research on Managed Care is the subject of a report. According to news originating from Boston, Massachusetts, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “The Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace plays a critical role in providing affordable health insurance for the nongroup market, yet the accessibility of plans from insurers with high quality ratings has not been investigated. Our analysis of recently released insurer quality star ratings for plan year 2020 found substantial variation in access to high rated plans in the federally facilitated ACA Marketplace.”

Financial supporters for this research include Commonwealth Fund, Arnold Ventures, Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, William F. Milton Fund of Harvard University, Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning, NIH National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Harvard University, “In most participating counties (1,390 of 2,265, or 61.4 percent), the highest-rated ACA Marketplace insurer had a three-star rating. Fewer than one-third of counties (703, or 31.0 percent) had access to four- or five-star-rated insurers. Fewer than 10 percent (172, or 7.6 percent) had access to only one- or two-star-rated insurers. In plan-based analyses, each one-point increase in star rating was associated with a $28 increase in the average monthly plan premium. Counties with the highest proportion of residents obtaining individual coverage through the ACA Marketplace and counties with more insurers were the most likely to have access to plans from high-rated insurers. We found no systematic racial or ethnic disparities in access to plans from high-rated insurers.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Policy makers should continue to monitor the quality of available health plans.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Marketplace Health Insurance Ratings: Most Potential Enrollees Have Access To Plans of Medium or High Quality. Health Affairs, 2022;41(3):390-397. Health Affairs can be contacted at: Project Hope, 7500 Old Georgetown Rd, Ste 600, Bethesda, MD 20814-6133, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Thomas C. Tsai, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, United States. Additional authors for this research include Dannie Griggs, E. John Orav, Arnold M. Epstein, Benjamin H. Jacobson and Ashish K. Jha.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.00922. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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