A new website called “HealthPocket.com” enables consumers to compare every health insurance plan in their geographic region. Consumers can get information on the price and quality of their health insurance options without any insurance company paying to showcase its own plans or highlight information. Similar to online sites like Amazon or Kayak, HealthPocket.com filters all plans offered in a geographic area by cost of premiums, cost of drugs covered, and quality of the plan. Consumers can use the site to get information and even get connected with an insurance provider, but HealthPocket.com does not broker sales of health insurance.
“Existing online health insurance sites have at least one fatal flaw — they steer consumers only toward the health plans that have paid to be one of the options, which skews the results. Other sites require the user to divulge personally identifiable information before providing any results. HealthPocket.com shares all the information people need to make a decision, without requiring anything from them and without any pay for placement from insurers,” said Steve Zaleznick, who leads consumer outreach for HealthPocket, Inc.
More than half of the U.S. population will need to make choices about their health insurance carrier by 2014 with millions of Medicare beneficiaries facing a Dec. 7 deadline for enrolling in Medicare Part D prescription drug plans and/or Medicare Advantage plans. For more information, visitwww.healthpocket.com.