Missouri and Illinois will be two of five states to get an early look at the federal health insurance marketplace for small businesses, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Wednesday.
Businesses with fewer than 50 full-time workers in the five states will be able to access the Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP, in late October, ahead of the start of open enrollment on Nov. 15.
Employers, agents and brokers in the early access states will be able to complete eligibility applications, upload an employee roster, and view plans and pricing once they become available.
Health care advocates praised the early access period and the much-anticipated launch of the online marketplace for small companies.
“Having online access just gives small employers another option to best find coverage to suit their employees’ needs, said Mary Timmel, an outreach manager with the Small Business Majority, which supports the Affordable Care Act.
President Barack Obama’s administration delayed SHOP’s scheduled implementation in states with federally facilitated exchanges last year to prioritize fixes to HealthCare.gov, the online insurance marketplace for individuals whose launch was beset by computer problems.
The SHOP exchange, created by the Affordable Care Act, is designed to allow employers to compare competing plans. The company could then offer its employees a choice from among several policies.
The law also allows businesses with fewer than 25 employees to potentially qualify for a tax credit worth up to 50 percent of the cost of their insurance plan’s premium purchased through the SHOP exchange.
Companies with fewer than 50 full-time workers are not required to provide coverage for their workers.
Although the SHOP online marketplace was delayed, small businesses in the affected states did have the option last year to purchase plans through an agent or broker using paper applications.
But Bill Hall, the president of Des Peres-based Visor Benefits who helps businesses find insurance coverage, said the choices were severely limited. Only one Missouri company, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield, offered plans on the SHOP marketplace last year.
Hall added that many of the businesses he helped did not qualify for a tax credit, which hurt participation.
“If you don’t qualify for the subsidy it really doesn’t make sense to participate because all you are is just limited,” he said.
CMS said Wednesday that allowing employers to view the online exchange early would allow the government to gather feedback on the website.
Timmel, with Small Business Majority, said that additional time was imperative for the SHOP exchanges to succeed.
Missouri and Illinois were chosen for the early access period along with Ohio, New Jersey and Delaware after the department analyzed the state insurance markets, the availability of employee choice and the presence of a reliable ground operation to engage stakeholders, a Department of Health and Human Services official said on background.
Advocates in Missouri said they are ready to take advantage of the extended time to review the SHOP exchange in their push to enroll more people.
“We are well-positioned with such a large coalition and there is interest in helping some of those small businesses,” said Ryan Barker, vice president of Health Policy at the Missouri Foundation for Health, which set up the Cover Missouri Coalition.
Date: September 03, 2014