PHOTO: Courtesy ConsumerReports.org
For the fourth year in a row, Consumer Reports published rankings of hundreds of health insurance plans across the United States to help consumers determine which ones may be best for them. This marks the first time the organization took additional steps to identify plans that both provide high-quality care and avoid costly care.
The full report is available in the November issue of Consumer Reports. The latest health plan rankings are available for free online at www.ConsumerReports.org/healthinsurance.
The rankings data and the “Best Value” designation come from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), a respected non-profit health care quality measurement group. Overall, Consumer Reports and NCQA have information on more than 1,000 private, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid plans.
The rankings could be especially valuable to consumers this year because health insurance becomes a requirement for just about everyone in the U.S. on January 1, 2014 under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA).
To help consumers better understand how they may be affected by ACA, Consumer Reports recently launched HealthLawHelper.org — a web-based tool that offers personalized guidance by taking complex information and breaking it down into practical and useful nuggets for the average consumer. After answering four basic questions, the tool provides a customized, printable report that identifies what an individual consumer should look for in the insurance marketplace. The tool is free and does not require users to provide their name or other personally identifying information.
For more information, visit HealthLawHelper.org.
