The Department of Health and Human Services has added a new data set to HealthCare.gov that contains the current inventory of private insurance plans to allow researchers, reporters and others to use the information to advance consumer understanding of insurance.
The data comes from issuers of individual and group insurance in all 50 states and Washington D.C. The files contain basic information about the issuers and their products as well as data on specific health insurance plans, including the benefit and cost-sharing structure of each.
“By releasing this data in the form of downloadable files, we’re enabling the public to more fully understand the current health insurance marketplace and opening the door to innovative uses of the data,” CTO Todd Park wrote in a blog post. “For example, a researcher could use this information to put together a picture of benefit and cost-sharing options by region or state, in order to better understand what insurance choices are available to consumers by location. We very much look forward to seeing how this open data gets utilized by innovators across the country!”
