From The Washington Post.

In just a few weeks, millions of people will be heading to HealthCare.gov to shop for medical insurance when a new open-enrollment period begins. If some of those people wind up by mistake at HealthCare.com instead, well, CEO and co-founder of Healthcare.com Jeff Smedsrud is fine with that. 

This is Healthcare.com. It looks a lot like Healthcare.gov.

With enrollment in the individual health insurance market re-opening Nov. 15, Smedsrud wants people to direct their browsers to HealthCare.com, where they can shop and compare health plans. HealthCare.com is touting a choice of 93,000 plans from about 180 insurers across the country, with the opportunity for consumers to enroll online, over the phone or with a licensed agent or broker.

But health care advocates say there is the potential for massive confusion among consumers trying to find the government’s official site. Users who wind up there by mistake could miss out on subsidies that most would receive if they were shopping on HealthCare.gov. And like HealthCare.gov last year, the HealthCare.com site has some kinks that it’s still working out, including inaccurate information.

A recent search on HealthCare.com yielded a list of catastrophic insurance plans, which offer the lowest premiums but the lowest level of coverage, and showed they were eligible for subsidies. But the ACA specifically doesn’t make subsidies available for catastrophic plans.

The site is also currently showing 2014 health plans, but the company said it will update with 2015 health plans before the enrollment period begins.

There are new challenges this year. Some premiums are expected to increase or tax credits may shrink, potentially leaving current enrollees with higher monthly payments if they don’t shop around for a new plan. 

This coming enrollment period will be half as long as the last one but with the possibility of twice as many people trying to purchase coverage in the insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act. Users have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the HealthCare.com homepage to find a tiny disclaimer saying it’s a private Web site that is not run by the government.

Almost 9 in 10 people who signed up for insurance through HealthCare.gov in the first enrollment period received a federal subsidy. Smedsrud said his company’s website is adjusting the language to make sure shoppers understand they must go through the government’s enrollment portal to receive financial assistance.

Smedsrud said his website is offering at least one service to make it more attractive to customers. It will make recommendations to customers of what type of health plan to buy, based on information like income and how much care they expect to use. It turns out to be easy for people to get the Web site address correct for the government’s health care portal.

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