If a Medicare staff recommendation is okayed, health insurance exchanges may be re-named.  According to Kaiser Health News , that is because, Medicare officials say consumers understand words like “marketplace” better.  “We are recommending not using the word ‘exchange’” in enrollment materials, said Julie Bataille, director of the CMS Office of Communications.  While Bataille didn’t mention the preferred substitute, she dropped hints.  “Words like ‘marketplace’ resonate much more with the consumer and also tend to be something that is all inclusive,” Bataille said.

According to Bataille, “exchange” can have a number of different meanings to consumers, including the idea that they may have something to trade.  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires the federal government to establish health insurance exchanges in states that refuse to create their own.  They are often described as online marketplaces similar to Travelocity.com or Amazon.com, where consumers can search for insurance policies that fit certain criteria.  Enrollment information will become available in the fall of 2013 and the exchanges — or whatever the ultimate name is – will start operating in 2014, unless the Supreme Court declares the law unconstitutional.

The word “exchange” appears 247 times in the ACA, while “marketplace” is not mentioned once, according to Kaiser Health News.  But that doesn’t mean officials are obligated to use it, said Brenda Cude, a professor of consumer economics at the University of Georgia and a consumer representative for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.  “I don’t believe that Congress is any kind of expert on how to communicate with consumers,” she said.  But “marketplace” may not be a fool-proof alternative, Cude said.  She is concerned that comparing a health insurance exchange to a shopping website encourages the notion that the lowest price policy is the best choice.  That may be true when looking for a commodity like a cheap airfare to a single destination, but not for healthcare policies offering different benefits.

Bataille said the Medicare staff’s advice to avoid the term “exchange” is supported by external research and the agency’s focus group testing this year in Cleveland, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia and Phoenix.  CMS “routinely” tests its materials and websites with consumers “to make sure we are serving our beneficiaries as well as possible,” Bataille said.  “So we see our work on the exchanges as an extension of that.”  According to Bataille, CMS will seek public comment on the enrollment materials before finally deciding whether to use the word “exchange” or “marketplace”.