Posted on 03/29/2014 11:02:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If you like your exchange … you can keep your exchange? And if you don‘t like your state ObamaCare exchange — because it hasn’t functioned properly in six months despite endless promises that Maryland would fix it — you don’t have to keep your exchange. The state will finally throw in the towel on its $125 million web portal, and will replace it with a copy of Connecticut’s:
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.
The board of the Maryland exchange plans to vote on the change Tuesday, the day after the end of the first enrollment period for the state’s residents under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. …
It was not immediately clear how much more money Maryland may have to invest to get a fully functioning system, according to the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the changes.
How much more money will Maryland taxpayers have to cough up? Well, let’s take a look at results first. Maryland spent $125.5 million on the existing exchange. That was supposed to enroll 150,000 people by Monday’s deadline. They just recently cut their goal in half to 75,000, but the Washington Post reports that fewer than 50,000 have enrolled in private plans through the exchange, as of today. It’s not clear, though, that the Post confirmed these as actual enrollments where a premium has been paid, or just sign-ups to private plans without confirmation of actual enrollment. Given the way the media has reported on the government figures, it’s presumably the latter.
With those results in mind, one might imagine that it will take several hundred million dollars in order to salvage the database from this system while buying another system entirely from Deloitte, who built the Connecticut system. Of course, most of the original exchange database software and hardware can simply be converted to the new system to save taxpayers significant start-up costs, right? Wrong:
Some of the hardware that Maryland bought for its system, such as servers, can be salvaged, but the software and coding that are the guts of its online marketplace will be replaced, said the individuals familiar with the decision.
Only some of the hardware will work in a new system? Shouldn’t the web portal and database have been designed to be platform-independent? Maryland taxpayers had better brace themselves for another big bill. Maybe this time their money will actually buy a system that works.
“I’m so pro-American, I want more of you to stay alive,”
That’s why I own firearms, Piers.
Huh?
I believe he was on Face the Nation three weeks ago bragging about how swimmingly everything was going with the state exchange, of course completely unchallenged by Quasimodo..er, Bob Schieffer. The next day the woman who had been running the exchange ran for cover.
$125 million! Down the tubes. Somebody higher up is getting some bigtime kickbacks. Wish a good investigative reporter would make a name for him/herself tracking this one down.
- …tell Vladimer I will be a more flexible hoser on red lines after the election… - BHO Junior
Who wrote it, who let the contract? FTM (follow the money... and the political connections).
Where do the peeps of MD go to get their $2500?
Up until recently, they were blowing about how Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D) (also running for Gov. this year) was in charge of rolling out the website.
Since it's been shown to be a $125 million disaster, those claims have evaporated, and the RATS in Annapolis are running away from this Baby Ruth in the Maryland pool.
And how shall this new big bill be paid? Through another sales tax increase (to Owe’Malley’s beloved 7 percent)? More theft from the transportation fund? A new tax on businesses, ostensibly to fund enforcement of the “bathroom bill?”
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
I know that the software technology from Washington States’ exchange (which does work) would basically be non-portable to any other state’s implementation, except for elements of the front end, because it is so tightly interwoven with the state’s proprietary DSHS and existing Health Care Authority databases. Better to just commission the developers to write a new one mostly from scratch
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.