Renewal of ASPE subscription

Intent to Sole Source: Pursuant to the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1)(i), the Contracting Officer may solicit from one source if the Contracting Officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source is reasonably available. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Program Support Center (PSC), Acquisition Management Services (AMS) on behalf of PSC, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (OS-ASPE) intends to sole source to: Decision Resource, Inc 8 New England Executive Park Suite 600 Burlington, MA 01803 The ASPE subscription for the DRG Market Surveyor provides health plan market share data on a plan specific, State by State, and national basis. This information will be essential to understanding the health insurance market for HHS policy research in order to design and assess a variety of insurance access initiatives. The DRG data has proved very important through past subscriptions in those instances when access to data was used to determine State insurance market characteristics needed for health reform issues on a quick response basis. Data on the characteristics of the insurance market will be helpful in a project to determine whether the level of health insurance competition in a market impacts access to care and consumer satisfaction with their health plan. It will also be used for issues of insurer bargaining power and competition, as well as determining the concentration of insurers by state for current health reform issues surrounding health insurance exchanges and where data is needed on insurer financial results by State. Decision Resources Group (DRG), is the only one responsible source and no other source will satisfy agency requirements because the Health Leaders Inter study data base provides a unique data set of importance to ASPE's research, therefore full and open competition need not be provided for. Through market research it is found that DRG has the only data base that combines both payer and provider information on the number of enrollees by state and county in health plans by type of plan and by provider. The distribution by type of health plan will enable separate analyses of enrollment in commercial versus Medicare and Medicaid programs. The geographic distribution of health plans, enrollees, and providers will assist ASPE in its analyses of marketplace payer and provider concentration. Payer and provider concentration by area is important in understanding whether this factor is significant in determining if a particular market area is successful in providing affordable health plans to consumers in these areas. A lack of a sufficient number of payers or high concentration of providers may be indicative of a "failed" or broken market which may warrant some corrective actions. This is not a solicitation for competitive proposal. No solicitation document is available. All responsible sources that have determined that they can provide the same services may submit product information and a capabilities statement addressing their specific abilities regarding this requirement. The email subject line must reference OS181161. All responses are due by September 23, 2016 at 8:00 Am Eastern Time and can be sent to Kevin Ceponis at contact@example.gov. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract base upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the government.