Traffic on the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) continues to be negligible and a new survey from the Urban Institute suggests that isn’t going to change any time soon.
According to the report, small business owners have yet to fully participate in SHOP based in partn on the IT problems plaguing the site as well as the one-year delay by the federal government and what is perceived as a limited reach of tax credits.
However, producers may also be an important factor in the site’s less-than-impressive performance. According to interviews from industry insiders in eight states, there is a comparatively low number of agents and brokers steering their clients to SHOP plans at all.
While some of that reticence may be due to a lack of marketing efforts on behalf of the state and federal exchanges, producers have another reason not to embrace SHOP: offerings in many areas are severely limited.
According to a June announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, insurance commissioners in each region requested permission to limit carrier choices through SHOP to just one employer-designated plan.
As a consequence, the report concluded that SHOP has “a long way to go to be successful.”
“To move the SHOP business to stronger ground…considerable thought and effort must be put into the most effective framework for marketing and sales of the small-group products that they offer,” researchers wrote. “A clear and concise understanding of the extra value brought to the market by the SHOP is particularly important, and is an effort that can be taken jointly by the state-based Marketplaces and the federally facilitated ones.”
Options are not entirely restricted to state SHOP exchanges. The federal government plans to operate its small-business exchange for both the 32 states that declined to set up their own and the 18 states that will offer just one health plan. Those exchanges are set to open Nov. 15, with pilot testing in October.
