ATLANTA– Starting Monday, 1.3 million Georgians who purchased health care through the Affordable Care Act can start looking at plans through Georgia Access, the state’s new marketplace.
Open enrollment for Georgia Access begins Friday. For the first time since the ACA launched, Georgians will no longer be able to use the federal website to sign up for health insurance.
“This milestone is the culmination of the extraordinary work our office has done over the past three years to free Georgia from dependence on the federal government for health care,” Insurance and Fire Commissioner John King said in a news release.
Former President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, initiating federally subsidized health insurance plans known as “Obamacare.” More than a dozen states have set up their own exchanges to implement the ACA’s subsidy program, and Georgia received federal approval in August to open its own marketplace after years of negotiations.
Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp said launching a state insurance exchange was one of his top priorities after he was elected in 2019.
“A state-based exchange will not only make the process easier for Georgians to get covered, but will also expand their coverage options and our ability to promote high-quality and affordable health care plans,” Kemp said in a news release.
The Georgia Access website should allow Georgians to find health care policies that are both affordable and cover basic needs, just like the ACA’s website. But some worry that private companies will prioritize their own profits instead of giving people good coverage, and those who want to take advantage of user fees may push for more enrollees than in the federal system.
The state is already making hundreds of millions of dollars in site registration fees, which previously flowed into the federal system.
Unlike other state exchanges, the Georgia Access website emphasizes links that direct people to private web brokers and insurance agents. State officials say many Georgians were already using private options, and they will revoke an agent’s license if they don’t act in the best interest of consumers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports this that two of the private web brokers Georgia works with, Benefitalign and Inshura, were temporarily banned from the ACA website after federal investigation and a civil lawsuit found evidence of alleged fraud.
Still, some private web brokers, such as HealthSherpa.com, which enrolled 550,000 ACA policyholders in Georgia, received positive reviews.
State-funded navigators will also be available to help users in Georgia understand their options, just as they did with the federal website. Navigators can recommend people enroll in a Medicaid plan, which provides free government health care to low-income adults.
State officials said they are working to facilitate a smooth enrollment process for consumers and avoid a repeat of the chaotic launch of the ACA more than a decade ago.
“Anytime you have a big launch like this, you’re going to run into some unexpected situations,” said Cheryl Gardner, executive director of Georgia Access, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But we think what we don’t have is an inability to imagine. We’ve imagined just about anything that could come up, and we’re prepared to deal with it.”