Tag: exchange

Rep. Andy Harris (R, Maryland): oh, yeah, the feds are doing subpoenas over Maryland #Obamacare exchange.

I should note that I have no personal knowledge that this is going on…

A Maryland Congressman says subpoenas are being issued in a federal investigation into Maryland’s health exchange. He believes there was fraud in the system that cost taxpayers millions but didn’t work right at the start.

[snip]

Congressman Andy Harris says there appears to be evidence of fraud. He is Maryland’s only Republican in Congress and has fought Obamacare. But this investigation—if it’s happening—is being conducted by what is supposed to be a non-political government agency.

Continue reading Rep. Andy Harris (R, Maryland): oh, yeah, the feds are doing subpoenas over Maryland #Obamacare exchange.

2012 Video shows major Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber confirm that subsidies were meant only for state exchanges.

Oopsie?

Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who helped design the Massachusetts health law that was the model for Obamacare, was a key influence on the creation of the law. He was widely quoted in the media. During the crafting of the law, the Obama administration brought him on for his expertise. He was paid almost $400,000 to consult with the administration on the law. And he has claimed to have written part of the legislation, the section dealing with small business tax credits.

After the law passed, in 2011 and throughout 2012, multiple states sought his expertise to help them understand their options regarding the choice to set up their own exchanges. During that period of time, in January of 2012, Gruber told an audience at Noblis, a technical management support organization, that tax credits—the subsidies available for health insurance—were only available in states that set up their own exchanges.

Continue reading 2012 Video shows major Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber confirm that subsidies were meant only for state exchanges.

Price tag for failed state Obamacare exchanges approaching half a billion.

All coming out of the state taxpayers’ pockets.

Nearly half a billion dollars in federal money has been spent developing four state Obamacare exchanges that are now in shambles — and the final price tag for salvaging them may go sharply higher.

Each of the states — Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Maryland — embraced Obamacare, and each underperformed. All have come under scathing criticism and now face months of uncertainty as they rush to rebuild their systems or transition to the federal exchange.

Continue reading Price tag for failed state Obamacare exchanges approaching half a billion.

Report: it will take $45M and almost two years to ‘fix’ Cover Oregon.

That’s under current conditions (keep the database, keep current vendor Oracle), at least according to the Deloitte Development report that the state of Oregon commissioned on how to get from under the horrible state exchange disaster inflicted on Oregon by Governor John Kitzhaber and his fellow Democrats. Reading the report, it looks like Deloitte’s recommendation would be that Oregon simply cut Cover Oregon loose and join the federal exchange. As the Oregonian noted:

Oregon could hook up to the federal exchange far sooner and for a fraction of the cost, according to the report obtained by The Oregonian. A hybrid solution mixing the federal exchange and an unfinished Oracle-based small-business section of the exchange would also be faster than sticking with the current plan, as well as cheaper.

Continue reading Report: it will take $45M and almost two years to ‘fix’ Cover Oregon.

Lt Gov. Anthony Brown’s utter failure: Maryland #Obamacare exchange to be scrapped.

Over a hundred million dollars’ worth of tax money – partially my tax money – down the drain: “Maryland officials are set to replace the state’s online health-insurance exchange with technology from Connecticut’s insurance marketplace, according to two people familiar with the decision, an acknowledgment that a system that has cost at least $125.5 million is broken beyond repair.” – This comes two months after Lt. Governor Anthony Brown refused to apologize for the poor behavior of the state exchange, and the O’Malley exchange promised that no replacement was forthcoming.  Guess even a Maryland Democratic politician will notice a brick wall after he’s walked into it a couple of times, eh?

And don’t think that the money hemorrhage has stopped, either! No, now the state of Maryland has to set up a new database, make sure that it is in compliance with Maryland state regulations – not Connecticut’s – make sure that it actually works… and, oh yes, reintegrate the existing database records with the new ones.  Because there are almost 50,000 people in the old system, and if Maryland isn’t careful all of those people will probably lose their healthcare, at least temporarily. …Oh, Shorter Moe Lane: Database conversions are Hell. On. Earth. Here’s your accordion. Continue reading Lt Gov. Anthony Brown’s utter failure: Maryland #Obamacare exchange to be scrapped.

Maryland inadvertently experiments with cross-state #obamacare plans.

Alternative title: why must you do this to me democrats i dont even my pain fills the stars

Marylanders who use the federal health reform site to search for navigators who can help them enroll in health plans in-person are getting directed to agencies in other states.

…Which is nice of Maryland, given the way that Gov. Martin O’Malley* and the rest of his Democratic krew have utterly [expletive deleted] up the state exchange already.  And note the tense: this is happening right now.  Your guess is as good as mine as to when, or if, it gets fixed.

Continue reading Maryland inadvertently experiments with cross-state #obamacare plans.

…Wait, that wasn’t the *Maryland* #Obamacare exchange director that was off at a tropical beach?

Maryland, Minnesota, both start with M:

MNsure director April Todd-Malmlov took a two-week vacation to Costa Rica around Thanksgiving. Gov. Mark Dayton defended her right to take a pre-scheduled trip, but critics of the fledgling health insurance exchange pounced.

The conservative group Watchdog.org put out a press release Thursday, condemning her absence while “thousands of frustrated Minnesotans were notified about glitches and errors in their applications on the state insurance exchange.”

Then again, so does “massively malignant meltdown.”

Via Jim Geraghty, who is also apparently getting forwarded all the good state exchange disasters. January 2014 is going to be a heck of a month.

Moe Lane

Maryland #obamacare exchange director, ahem, ‘resigns.’

Well now.

The executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange resigned Friday.

The chairman of the board of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, Joshua Sharfstein, said Rebecca Pearce worked tirelessly and with dedication for two years to build the Maryland Health Connection.

…Which enrolled only 3,000 people, as of last Thursday.  Apparently that was close enough to the target number that Ms. Pearce felt all right about going ahead on her Cayman Islands vacation.  How are those, anyway?  I hear that they can be nice. Continue reading Maryland #obamacare exchange director, ahem, ‘resigns.’

Nevada’s state #obamacare exchange numbers are… very, very bad.

So last month there was SOME sort of benchmark established for the Nevada state exchange:

According to Nevada Health Link’s Twitter feed, as of October 15, 32,280 Nevadans had created accounts on the exchange, with 11,916 of them beginning applications. 3,795 had completed the eligibility process and 1,419 had selected a plan and placed it in their cart, a task at least one step short of enrolling in a plan.

The state exchange was projected to enroll 118,000 uninsured Nevadans during the open enrollment period, which runs from October 1, 2013 through March 31, 2014. In a report on the Exchange Enrollment Facilitator program, Nevada Health Link predicted that 80% of those enrolled through that particular program would enroll by December 15 and be covered on January 1.

Applying that same percentage to overall enrollment results in a target of 94,400 enrolling through Nevada Health Link from October 1 through December 15. The 1,419 Nevadans who had selected a plan in the first 20% of this period is just 1.5% of the enrollment target. And the number of people who had actually enrolled in a plan is certainly less.

A month later, how is that going?

Spoiler warning: badly. Continue reading Nevada’s state #obamacare exchange numbers are… very, very bad.

Vermont bails on its state exchange. *Temporarily*, of course.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

In the final pages of a law enacted in 2012, the [Vermont] Legislature spelled out a safety valve the Shumlin administration could use if the online health insurance marketplace then under development failed to operate as intended when it opened for business in 2013.

Vermont’s new insurance marketplace, like its federal counterpart, had a rocky launch Oct. 1 and remains plagued with glitches.

After trying to remain upbeat despite a month of malfunctions, Gov. Peter Shumlin last week invoked the legal safety mechanism that will give thousands of Vermonters the option to temporarily bypass Vermont Health Connect to obtain health insurance coverage for 2014.

They spent $170 million on that sucker, by the way. …And what else can I add to that? – Except to note that there are few things so permanent as a temporary delay.

Moe Lane

PS: These guys want to go single-payer. …And I am trying, and failing, to come up with a sentence that has more pure idiocy in it than is in that simple, straightforward observation.

Via