The attention was all paid to the individual plans that suddenly made health care “affordable” – if you received a subsidy (from which the federal government is backpedaling furiously). But alongside the individual plans the government decided that doing group insurance was a necessity…and it is the only vehicle that allows for the receipt of the small group health insurance tax credit. This was supposed to help sales, even though the first two years of the program qualification was open for any plan, and barely taken (especially in California). So now there is no surprise to find that the sale of the SHOP plan has not met expectations. Difficulty in service, the lack of flexibility in choice, narrow networks and other problems do not make it palatable in the market, and thus less than 12,000 businesses signed up in the first 8 months.
SHOP until you drop…it…sales are not what were expected on Exchange group plan
December 18, 2014