A Google search for “health insurance” brings eHealthInsurance.com as one of the top results — one reason, eHealth executives say, that state exchanges should follow the federal government in allowing consumers to enroll in subsidized health plans through private web exchanges like eHealthInsurance.

After the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced the federally-facilitated exchange would partner with web-brokers, as well as traditional brokers, eHealth, Inc. CEO Gary Lauer sent letters to the governors of the 16 states creating their own exchanges, as well as the Washington D.C. mayor, urging them to partner with the company for a cost-free interface, to enroll as many consumers as possible.

“We think that low-income people should have the same sources and the same choices to go to as wealthier people. And we also believe in the objective of getting as many people into the pool as possible,” Lauer, who’s worked as CEO since 1999, said during a press conference. “Having multiple ladders in the pool ensures that there are more people getting into the pool.”

As CMS’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) outlined in a recent guidance, the federal exchange is planning on partnering with web-brokers or “web-based entities” like eHealth to allow consumers to find and compare qualified health plans sold in the exchange in their state, and state-based exchanges will have the option as well.

[Related: Mostashari's 3 tactics for transforming care to reap HIT.]

Consumers can start shopping on a site like eHealth, which will connect to the public exchange for eligibility applications before showing available plans with advanced premium support options, and then transmit the selection and premium back to the public exchange.

eHealth is offering enrollment and pre-enrollment services for states free-of-charge and with simple interfacing technology. It’s not clear how many state exchanges will be partnering with web-based brokers, and Lauer said some seem skeptical or unsure about the process.

“We’re hearing from some states that they don’t have the time to use eHealth or other private online entities by the target date of October 1. And this is really perplexing to us. In fact, I think it’s false,” Lauer said, noting that the company developed an interface that will support state and federal exchanges. “It can be posted up in a matter of days and in some cases in hours,” he said. “We do all of the work and it’s all at our expense.”

Like traditional agents and brokers, web-based brokers may receive commissions from insurers for enrolling consumers, although they have to present all qualified health plans regardless of insurer relations and it’s not clear what kind of commissions will be available.

Lauer said eHealth is, in large part, pushing the web-broker enrollment option out of a shared concern for meeting the Affordable Care Act’s goals of universal insurance coverage.

“In fact, I have a real personal interest in this. I happen to be somebody today, in my home state, who is not insurable,” said Lauer, who lives in California, where eHealth is based. “I run the largest online health insurance source in the country, I’m very healthy, but I couldn’t get health insurance on my own, because I’m actually a cancer survivor. I think one of the great aspects of the Affordable Care Act is that people like me and many others can no longer be denied coverage.”

The company has also launched a website promoting the idea of partnering with state exchanges, called Costfreeenrollment.com. And it has the support of technology entrepreneur and advocate Rey Ramsey, the outgoing CEO of Tech Net, a bipartisan network of U.S. technology company executives, who recently endorsed the idea in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ramsey, who founded the nonprofit One Economy in 2000 to help expand broadband access in low-income communities and has also worked with the NAACP, explained that he sees the option of multiple enrollment channels as part of a broad-based outreach strategy fit for the digital era.

The increasing affordability of mobile phones and tablet computers has brought internet access to low-income communities where even five years ago it was too expensive, he noted. “More people go online to do things that help them live, work and play. For those who can’t there will be on-the-ground options, but anybody in any business would have a digital outreach strategy," he wrote. "In this case, you have a digital marketplace already established, at no cost.”

Ramsey continued, “And as a matter of government philosophy, we should do everything we can to make it easy for individuals and we should meet them where they are. At the end of the day we have a choice to make: Will we choose to maximize this opportunity that digital technology makes available to us, or will we choose a time-worn approach of just sending outreach workers and hoping for the best — hoping we can catch people when they’re around and when they’re available?”

See also:

CMS outlines federal HIX enrollment, customer service

Health plans perpare edge data servers for HIXs

3 lessons on risk: What Higher Ed can teach health IT

Healthcare Finance News: ACA promotes innovation and investment prospects