Quick action: health insurance exchanges become marketplaces

Thanks to David Kerrigan of the Massachusetts Health Connector for pointing out that the Obama Administration has suddenly switched terminology: health insurance exchanges are now health insurance marketplaces. I think it's a great idea, which is why I wrote a blog post on this very topic on Friday. The Hill (Obama officials ditch 'exchanges' in rebranding of healthcare reform law) covers the story.However, the Hill has a weird angle on this. The article heavily features an anti-ObamaCare activist, Dean Clancy who says:

“They could call them motherhood or apple pie, but it wouldn’t change our feelings about them... We're encouraged that they're showing signs of desperation. I think that it’s too late in the game to try to start calling this something different. And [we’re] not going to spend a lot of effort fighting over a word.”

Clancy's website is called blockexchanges.com, so he may actually have more commitment to the word exchange than the Obama folks. Somehow blockmarketplaces.com just doesn't have the same ring to it. (That domain is still available at this writing in case you want to grab it.) Blockexchanges also has some misleading information on its home page:

"Remember, without the state exchanges, ObamaCare cannot function."

Actually, the federal government will step in if the states don''t.Personally, I don't sense desperation but rather a gradual wising up about what implementation will require. The term "marketplace" makes a good deal of sense for someone who is comparison shopping for health insurance. Here's to more commonsense improvements as ObamaCare is rolled out.