Health marketplace educators learning the ropes

COLUMBIA, Mo. - The Cover Missouri Coalition hosted coalition members, health care marketplace navigators and application counselors at the "Ready, Set, Enroll: Central Regional Summit" for the beginning of the next round of the Missouri Health Insurance Marketplace education campaign.

Open enrollment begins Nov. 15 and ends Feb. 15. The coalition will host several more events to raise awareness for the open enrollment for the health care marketplace until the enrollment closes, including something on Dec.13 to let people know that Dec. 15 is the last day to enroll and be covered at the start of the new year, said Nancy Kelley, program director for expanding coverage of the Missouri Foundation of Health.

"Almost everyone needs to have health insurance," Kelley said. "They could have that through an employer, which most do, or through a government program like Medicare. The folks that don't have that are going to need to find a plan through the marketplace."

Kelley said the goal of the coalition was to drop the number of insured Missourians to less than 5 percent of the state in five years; currently 800,000 residents are uninsured. The goals of the summit was to educate the marketplace navigators and certified application counselors on the latest information about the marketplace, as well as to let the public know that there is free in person help for those who need it.

The changes to this year's marketplace include some updates to the website to make it more visually pleasing and user friendly, Kelley said. Also she was hopeful that the Missouri marketplace would have an expanded menu of carriers and plans, but she added that they will not know about that until October.

She also mentioned that there is finanical help, for those who qualify, in the form of tax credits and cost reduction. Nearly 85 percent of the 152,000 Missourians who enrolled in the marketplace for health insurance last year qualified and received a financial subsidy or tax credit to help with the cost, said Robin Corderman, consumer assistance program manager for Primaris's expanding coverage grant. Primaris is a health care consulting firm.

"It is going much smoother than it was last October," said Corderman about the summit. "We have helped a lot of people who did not know what insurance was, how to use it and how to find providers. So it is going smoothly. We are looking forward to seeing a lot more people during this second enrollment."

Last year was a learning experience for the Primaris employees; now they have updated their websites, have new systems in place and more knowledge on insurance, Corderman said.

At the beginning of the summit, Lisa Kinser spoke to the crowd about how the marketplace navigators had helped her. After she started her own business and dropped to part-time employment at the hospital where she worked, she lost her insurance. She was hesitant to apply in the open market because of rumors she had heard about the high cost, she said.

Once talking to a friend who had enrolled and paid around $40 a month for coverage, she decided to investigate it herself, Kinser said. It took a "good chunk" of her afternoon with an official to get enrolled. She described the experience as pleasant and now she pays around $40 for full coverage medical and dental insurance, she said.

"I am just so thankful that you do this for free," Kinser said. "It is such a wonderful service. I had no idea it even existed and ... it is so nice to know this is even out there. It really does make a difference."