The Affordable Care Act enables the establishment of Health Benefit Exchanges of several types, including (i) State-based, (ii) State-Federal partnerships and (iii) Federally Facilitated Exchanges. The purpose of the Exchanges is to, among other things, "provide competitive marketplaces for individuals and small employers to directly compare available private health insurance on the basis of price, quality and other factors.

In theory, the information provided by the exchanges will "give small businesses the same purchasing clout as larger businesses." Those goals are laudable and hard to quarrel with--anyone who has tried to buy individual health insurance knows that the available information on comparability of insurance plans is at best insufficient and at worst opaque.

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