By Sabrina Corlette and Sarah J. Dash

In 2014, most state-run health insurance marketplaces focused on the technical challenges of enrolling millions of people in new coverage. While this will continue to be a challenge this year, ongoing operational improvements will allow marketplaces to better focus on encouraging the delivery of better, more cost-effective care.

In a recent Commonwealth Fund issue brief, we assessed efforts among the state-based health insurance marketplaces to implement the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) quality improvement initiatives. Although federal officials allowed the marketplaces to delay implementing key quality provisions of the law, we found that 13 of the 17 states operating their own marketplace moved forward with at least one of the quality-related provisions of the ACA, such as collecting quality data or making quality information public. However, we also learned that using health insurance marketplaces as a vehicle for achieving better, more affordable care is easier said than done.

In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette and Sarah Dash assess the opportunities and challenges facing states as they pursue efforts to improve health plan quality. Read the full post here.