Starting Friday, Georgians interested in an Affordable Care Act health insurance plan have a state-run consumer portal that state officials hope will be easier to navigate and provide more options than the federal government’s healthcare.gov.
With the switchover, Georgia has cemented its hold on hundreds of millions of dollars in user fees that flow from running the ACA marketplace exchange, which used to go to the feds for running healthcare.gov. That money will be used to run Georgia Access and an insurance subsidy program the state is operating.
The state’s website, GeorgiaAccess.gov, launched its Consumer Portal on Friday, after a week of window shopping for consumers. Shopping for 2025 health coverage on the federal website, healthcare.gov, now is blocked for Georgians.
“We’ve been preparing for this for two years,” Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King said. “Explore. Go and look at the website. Show up” at Georgia Access events that are planned. “If you have any questions, pick up the phone and call us. ... We want to demystify the complications, the mystery of buying health insurance. And we have an incredibly talented team ready to help. We know we only get one shot at this and we are going to get it right. I’m committed to that.”
The change from the feds to the state was made as state officials are trying to offer more choices to Georgians and give them a smoother shopping experience.
Georgia hired a well-known technology company with experience building ACA websites for other states. With Georgia Access, “we’ve prioritized increasing access and affordability to (medical) care,” Gov. Brian Kemp said at a health care event this fall.
The Georgia Access shopping site is called the “consumer portal.” The portal is hosting the same plans as the federal site would, with the same consumer protections and federal subsidies and price discounts applied.
In a run-through the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saw last week, the portal seemed efficient and easy to use as a way to contrast and compare plan prices and coverage strengths. It included useful tools such as being able to see if your hospital is in the plan’s network.
Outside of the portal are links on the Georgia Access website that may lead consumers to other websites, owned by private insurance companies selling their own plans, or web brokers. There might be fewer rules on those sites about offering minimum benefits. But they are approved by the state to offer federally qualified health plans.
But 80% of Georgians traditionally seek some help from an agent, Georgia Access officials said. Including the web brokers, which the federal site also allows, was a way to let consumers keep choosing the right shopping experience for themselves, said Cheryl Gardner, director of Georgia Access.
King’s office told the AJC on Thursday that two of the web brokers that the state originally approved, Benefitalign and Inshura, will be blocked from Georgia’s website barring further developments. Those two are also banned by the federal site and have been sued for allegedly unethical practices. They deny wrongdoing.
“We’re not going to put Georgia citizens to buy products from a company that has problems,” King said.
Here are some basics for consumers:
2025 ACA PLANS: SHOPPING BEGINS
- Open enrollment for 2025 ACA plans runs through Jan. 15.
- GeorgiaAccess.gov, the shopping website taking over for healthcare.gov, is launching its consumer portal for buying ACA health insurance plans today. Click “Consumer Portal.” The portal allows shoppers to contrast and compare plans, get the discounted price for their income level and see if their health care providers are covered.
- Healthcare.gov, which Georgia shoppers or their agents or web brokers have used for a decade, will be blocked for 2025 plans. Georgians still can use the federal site to manage enrollment for what’s left of 2024 ACA plans.
- If you have a 2024 plan and don’t do anything, Georgia Access automatically will re-enroll you in the most similar possible plan for 2025. All 1.3 million Georgia policy accounts have been transferred from the federal exchange to the state exchange, no matter how the customer enrolled.
- Unbiased “navigators” are available. The state’s help line is 888-687-1503 (TTY Line 711).
- GeorgiaAccess.gov also allows web brokers to enroll people. Some, like the web broker HealthSherpa.com, only present plans that meet the federally qualified guidelines for robust coverage. HealthSherpa’s phone number is 855-772-2663.
- GeorgiaAccess.gov also contains links to find private agents, insurance company websites and other web brokers for help.
- Note that the state website is GeorgiaAccess.gov, not GeorgiaAccess.org. The “org.” version flips a customer to the website of what appears to be an unaffiliated insurance business called VIP Health Insurance, run by Victory Insurance Partners; the owner of the URL’s registration was kept private.
Sources: Georgia’s Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner; HealthSherpa.com; U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
