(via WashingtonPost.com) Ask Gary Cohen, deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service, how the federal government’s new health insurance marketplace is working for small business owners, and he will assure you it’s “making it easier for them to find and purchase employee healthcare coverage.” Ask many members of the House Small Business Committee, and they will tell you they’re hearing the opposite from employers back home in their districts.

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Once promised a online system that would make purchasing health care plans as simple as purchasing flights through travel Web sites like Priceline or Expedia, small business owners have been, for at least the first year, left with a process awfully similar to the one they have always used to purchase insurance.

That’s because CMS officials recently announced that the SHOP Web site would not be ready to actually enroll employers and their employees until November of 2014—the third time in as many months the launch of a fully functional site has been delayed. Instead, for at least the next year, employers who want to purchase plans through the government-run exchange (a must for those hoping to take advantage of the tax credits) must submit paper applications and enroll through a broker, agent or directly through an insurance company.

Continue reading the source article: Health care law’s employer exchange — is it helping or failing small businesses? (WashingtonPost.com)

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