As Colorado nears the starting date of its health-care exchange, Connect for Health Colorado, the state is bracing itself for a deluge of new customers.
With 150,000 Coloradans expected sign up for the state’s exchange, former Colorado Insurance Commissioner Jim Riesberg calculated the state will have to process 800 people a day during the first six-month enrollment period from October to March.
That makes it necessary for an “all-hands-on-deck” approach, said Jim Sugden, small-business marketplace manager with Connect for Health Colorado.
“We need all the assistance we can get,” he said.
That’s where independent insurance brokers come in. The state is relying on hundreds of private health-insurance brokers to become certified partners in rolling thousands of uninsured Coloradans into health-insurance plans. For their part, brokers getting certified to sell plans in the exchange say filling that role is necessary to keep up their business and a lucrative chance to expand their customer base.
“It would definitely hit me financially if I don’t keep what I have in my pocket. Our agency will lose a lot of business if I don’t get certified.” said Kevin Heckman, a health- and life-insurance broker with Wolcott Insurance. “I’d love to get a piece of that pie,” Heckman said, of the hundreds of thousands of Coloradans who are eligible for health-insurance subsidies through the exchange.
In La Plata County, about 4,600 residents younger than 64 are expected to enter the individual exchange by 2016, according to estimates by the nonprofit Colorado Health Institute.
Connect for Health Colorado, created in response to requirements under the Affordable Care Act, will begin enrolling customers Oct. 1. The exchange will allow individuals and small businesses to shop for health insurance among various state-approved plans and receive subsidies if their income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
Customers will be able to buy their plans directly through the exchange or go through a broker, which will be free to the customer because brokers are compensated by the insurance providers. In an aim to level the playing field, however, state law requires that brokers be compensated the same whether they sell a plan inside the exchange or outside of it.
There is potential for new customers unfamiliar with the health-care system to misunderstand the financial arrangements between brokers and insurance companies, but both state officials and insurance companies likely will be keeping a close watch on brokers’ actions to make sure they’re dealing fairly, said Dede de Percin, executive director with Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.
So far, about 1,200 brokers have signed up to go through state training to become certified to sell insurance plans inside the exchange, Sugden said.
Local insurance brokers said they expect business to increase when the exchange opens for business.
Ken Bates, with Durango Insurance Professionals, has hired one new employee and plans to hire one more to deal with the expected influx in new customers. The company already has been reaching out to its existing customers to let them know plan options will be changing in 2014. Most “don’t have a clue” about how the Affordable Care Act changes will affect them, Bates said.
Businesses and individuals seem to have been holding off on buying or upgrading their insurance coverage in anticipation of Obamacare, Heckman said.
His business has stayed stagnant during the last year, and the number of policies he wrote in the past month was less than half of the number he writes in a good year, Heckman said.
“I really hope there is an influx of business (with the implementation of the exchange),” he said.
Brokers also said the Affordable Care Act will change the basis of their conversations with customers.
“The major change for us is instead of answering medical questions we’re going to talk about people’s finances. If they qualify for a subsidy we need to talk about money,” said Jay Short, owner Jay Short Insurance.
Local brokers are quickly trying to establish themselves as information resources in the world of health reform, though the lack of information has made things difficult. Short’s company has posted several blog posts about the issue and Bates has led educational seminars about impending changes related to the health-care exchange.
Much of the information now is based on guesstimates though, Bates said.
“We have never been down this path before,” he said.
ecowan@durangoherald.com
