Enrollment found to be cheaper through federal insurance marketplace

According to a new report, the cost for the federal health insurance exchange to sign people up for insurance benefits was less than the cost for the state-run marketplaces to do the same.

The report used data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services and was written by Jay Angoff, a former Missouri insurance commissioner. Angoff found that it cost the federal change an average of $647 to enroll a person. In comparison, it cost the state exchanges, on average, $1,503 to sign up each enrollee. 

There was a strong discrepancy between how much each state spent to sign up Americans. According to the analysis, North Dakota spent the most out of all the 15 state-run marketplaces, spending $7,089 per person, whereas Florida had the lowest cost per enrollee at $76.

Kaiser Health News reported there is a link between how much the state spent on each enrollee and its population size. According to the news source, those states with high costs per enrollee have relatively small populations, whereas larger states could distribute the costs throughout a bigger population.

The average cost to enroll a person through the marketplaces was $922. In total, the marketplaces spent $7.394 billion to enroll Americans in new health plans compliant with the Affordable Care Act.