Millions of people signed up for Obamacare health plans in 2014. But states and the federal government faced a quandary when it came to keeping them enrolled for 2015.

They could set up an automatic renewal process, so that customers who took no action would just stay in their existing plans. Or they could require every customer who wanted to stay insured to go back online and shop for a new 2015 plan.

There were trade-offs to each approach. Allowing people to default into existing plans meant they might not shop around — and many might get stuck with big premium increases when cheaper plans were available. But forcing people to shop again meant that distracted or unmindful customers might end up losing health coverage.

The federal government opted for the automatic process, determining that keeping people insured should be the paramount goal. But Rhode Island, which is running its own insurance marketplace, decided that every customer would need to shop for health insurance again.