Navigators: Keeping the Consumer Interest at Heart

Posted June 8, 2015

 

 

As the Health Care Program Coordinator at TakeAction Minnesota, I work with Navigators to learn about the realities of people’s health insurance needs and options, to assist in improving the enrollment process, and to connect them with opportunities to advocate for making our health care system work better for the people they are helping enroll.

What’s a Navigator, you might be wondering? The Navigator role was created as a part of the Affordable Care Act as a way for consumers using MNsure, the state-based health insurance exchange, to get free assistance with the enrollment process.  Navigators have been a crucial part of many enrollee’s success stories. One enrollee writes: “I tried to enroll last year, but could not get through the website on my own, so went through the year uninsured.  This year, I accessed enrollment help at the Salvation Army.  The fact that I could call someone who I could meet with and who could walk me through the Exchange made all the difference.”

As the 2015 Legislative Session comes to a close, I am left thinking of the good work of Navigators do and what it looks like to support them.

In this session, the Senate passed a measure to level the per enrollment payments Navigators receive for enrollment work, but the House did not and the measure did not make it into the final Health and Human Services bill.… Continue reading »