HealthPocket: The Kayak of health insurance

[audio http://healthbb.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/healthpocket3.mp3]
HealthPocket is a new website that allows consumers to compare all health plans in their area. A key market segment is Medicare Part D drug benefit recipients who tend to have many, many choices and seldom do a good job of picking the right plan. HealthPocket attempts to make it easy to compare plans. In my quick tests it did a decent job, although the site has a ways to go before it's really useful. HealthPocket is like Kayak in the travel industry in that it does not broker transactions directly but merely acts as an unbiased clearinghouse for comparative information.In this podcast interview, HealthPocket's Steve Zaleznick talks about the unmet need HealthPocket addresses, the company's business model, relationship of HealthPocket with health insurance exchanges, and the relevance of the Affordable Care Act.