Managers of HealthCare.gov have gotten 7,350 insuranceagents and brokers registered to sell health insurance exchangeplans through its enrollment system for 2018, in spite ofcontinuing uncertainty about how the individual major medicalmarket will work in 2018.

As of Thursday, HealthCare.gov managers had registered 1,639 ofthose agents and brokers to sell group exchange plans, even though,in the past, HealthCare.gov group plan sales have been so lowmanagers have never released group plan sales figures.

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At this point, HealthCare.gov agent and broker registrationtotals for 2018 appear to be about 47 percent of what the 2017 openenrollment period producer registration totals were at this point ayear ago.

The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, orCCIIO, has published the agent and broker registration figures forthe 2018 open enrollment period on its registration statusverification website.

Open enrollment for 2018 is set to start Nov. 1 and end Dec. 15in the states that use HealthCare.gov.

CCIIO is using the National Association of Health Underwriters,America's Health Insurance Plans and Litmos, a unit of CallidusSoftware Inc., to help with producer training. Agents and brokerscan also get their training through a government-run system.

CCIIO registers agents only for HealthCare.gov states.California, Colorado, Maryland and other states that have their ownstate-based exchange programs have separate producer certificationarrangements.

CCIIO: The HealthCare.gov Agency

Originally, ACA drafters assumed that most or all states wouldrun their own ACA exchange programs.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services set upHealthCare.gov to handle ACA exchange and account administrationservices in states that were unable or unwilling to handle thejob.

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is the divisionof HHS that's in charge of running HealthCare.gov and other ACAprograms.

The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, orCCIIO, is the arm of CMS actually in charge of day-to-dayoperations at HealthCare.gov.

The CMS leadership page shows that Randy Pate, a former vicepresident of public policy at Health Care Service Corp., is now thedirector of CCIIO. Health Care Service Corp. is the parent of theBlue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Texas and otherstates. Pate previously worked at HHS under the administration ofPresident George W. Bush. He has a master's degree in public healthfrom Johns Hopkins University.

Dean Mohs is the director of the division of small businessand agent/broker innovation.

House Republicans have proposed a 2018 spending bill, H.R. 3354,that would eliminate federal funding for the ACA exchange systemand prevent exchange program managers from using fees from insurersto keep the system going.

The Republican ACA change proposals that have reached the floorin the House and the Senate in recent months would keep theexchange system intact.

CCIIO and agents and brokers

Drafters of the Affordable Care Act created the public healthinsurance exchange system, or family of web-based health insurancesupermarkets, in an effort to give consumers an easy way to shopfor health coverage on the web.

In the past, agents and brokers reported having troubleunderstanding how CCIIO worked, getting in touch with live humansat CCIIO, or even with getting CCIIO to send them regularnewsletters.

CCIIO has been sending agents and brokers monthly newsletterssince at least as far back as June 2016.

This year, in spite of all of the turmoil involving the ACA, CCIIO says it has tried to improve itsagent and broker training and registration systems.

The registration system, for example, will now warn a would-beregistrant about apparent typos in National Producer Numberentries.

The HealthCare.gov is planning to offer weekly webinars foragents and brokers starting in September.

CCIIO does not appear to be saying anything new about whether itwill encourage HealthCare.gov plan issuers to offer commissions orenrollment fees, or whether it will help producers encourageexchange plan issuers to pay the commissions and fees that havealready been earned.