Are you ready to buy your health insurance over the counter?
Coming this fall, when you visit a Walgreens drug store, you might be able to pick up some health insurance to go with that cough syrup.
Citing sources “familar with the matter”, the Chicago Tribune has reported that the “company will sell health insurance products with different price ranges and coverage levels from coast-to-coast through a private health insurance exchange.”
Health reform mandates the creation of federal and state-funded public health insurance exchanges by 2014 that will offer subsidized insurance for uninsured and underinsured people.
A rush of companies, many not usually associated with health insurance, are also expected to jump into the nascent but lucrative market for health insurance exchanges — estimated to be worth billions of dollars — ahead of 2014.
Retailers, financial services providers and a large payroll processer are among firms that are actively looking into starting private health insurance exchanges that are separate from public exchanges, industry watchers said.
Photo by Thirteen Of Clubs.