HEALTHCARE.GOV Goes Live

The new health reform law mandated that, by July 1, 2010, the federal government create a website to help consumers better understand their health coverage options.  That site, healthcare.gov, went live on the Internet this morning.

The site is structured so that people in every state can answer some basic questions about themselves and their healthcare needs and then receive a list of potential options for acquiring some form of health coverage.  The Department of Health and Human Services collected information from over 1,000 insurers as well as the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program in each state in order to create the site’s database.  Healthcare.gov also has information on wellness and prevention as well as basic facts about the new health reform law.

HHS has also set up a Twitter feed at @healthcaregov as well as a YouTube site with information videos.

More on the site is found in this story on Politics Daily.

I haven’t had the opportunity to try out the site long enough to test its easy of usage or the breadth of its information, but I applaud HHS for getting the website up and running in such relatively quick time after the passage of health reform legislation.  We know from experience with the Medicare Part D planfinder website that it takes time to work out the kinks and create a Web platform that the public can easily understand and access.  The federal government has plenty of time to make these improvements before the new health insurance exchanges start in 2014.