Obama and his minions have spent almost $4.7 billion on Obamacare state exchanges. $474 million of which was a total waste of money (unless you were one of the contractors who got the cash). Obama spent almost $2 billion on community organizer grants to Obamacare sign-up assistants, people that filled the Medicaid rolls by 6 million new recipients. Obamacare, it’s all about the free shit; and free cash for cronies. Enjoying your higher premiums yet?
$474M for 4 failed Obamacare exchanges
Some contractors continue to insist that fixes are possible.
By JENNIFER HABERKORN and KYLE CHENEY | 5/11/14
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.
The federal government is caught between writing still more exorbitant checks to give them a second chance at creating viable exchanges of their own or, for a lesser although not inexpensive sum, adding still more states to HealthCare.gov. The federal system is already serving 36 states, far more than originally anticipated.
As for the contractors involved, which have borne most of the blame for the exchange debacles, a few continue to insist that fixes are possible. Others are braced for possible legal action or waiting to hear if now-tainted contracts will be terminated.
The $474 million spent by these four states includes the cost that officials have publicly detailed to date. It climbs further if states like Minnesota and Hawaii, which have suffered similarly dysfunctional exchanges, are added.
Their totals are just a fraction of the $4.698 billion that the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation calculates the federal government has approved for states since 2011 to help them determine whether to create their own exchanges and to assist in doing so. Still, the amount of money that now appears wasted is prompting calls for far greater accountability.
Where has that funding left the four most troubled states?
Nevada, for one, is still trying to figure out its future. Oregon has decided to switch to HealthCare.gov. Maryland wants to fix its own exchange, maybe by incorporating what worked in Connecticut. Massachusetts actually wants to do both — build a portal from scratch while planning a move to the federal exchange as a backup.
Massachusetts’ dual-track approach could require more than $120 million on top of the $170 million it already has been awarded. That cost is nearly twice as much as if the state were to simply bail on its Connector, but officials seem to be banking in part on the Obama administration’s greater interest in helping the Massachusetts exchange — the once-pioneering model for Obamacare — survive.
Josh Archambault, a senior fellow with the right-leaning Foundation for Government Accountability, argued that the state’s efforts to salvage its exchange are just a face-saving exercise.
“Instead of a quixotic sprint to rebuild the whole site in five months, state officials should instead pivot quickly to utilize the federal exchange, saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in the process,” he said.
State officials have warned that most of what is left of their initial federal award may be needed to end their contract with CGI, the vendor that built the Connector. They acknowledged Thursday they have no guarantees of additional federal funding.
“You have two choices,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said last week. “One is to expend even greater amounts of money on something that had limited success thus far or going to the federal exchange. … There’s simplicity in that, and I think that may be where some within the commonwealth would like to go.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/obamacare-cost-failed-exchanges-106535.html#ixzz31SWgYpmM
Yo,
What’s even worse is we already had a fully functioning healthcare exchange before they decided to implement this dog Obamacare. I guess you really don’t get what you pay for unless you are one of the connected cronies.
Bob.
Massachusetts Dismantles Health Insurance Exchange
May 7, 2014 · by Bailey McCann · in Featured, Health, Health Care, Health IT
Massachusetts is scrapping its troubled health insurance exchange in favour of installing software other states are using to run their own exchange. In the interim period the state will join the federal exchange at healthcare.gov. The switch is expected to cost the state an additional $100 million.
The exchange – Mass Health Connector is a separate and buggy exchange created to bring the state into compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) even though Massachusetts already had a well-functioning and very similar health insurance marketplace. The dysfunctional current exchange was deemed too risky to try and fix after attempts still failed and the state was running the risk of missing the next health insurance deadline for individuals who want coverage in 2015.
The change may also mean that some people who already have insurance will have to switch providers and sign up again if some local insurers can no longer afford to stay in the program.
CivSource previously reported on the state’s decision to drop CGI which was the initial contractor on the exchange after its failure to perform. CGI was also dropped by the federal government after the buggy rollout of the federal exchange.
Massachusetts is the second state that has had to scrap its insurance exchange this far into ACA implementation. Oregon is also abandoning its exchange after a long and rocky path with Oracle failed to produce a working website. Notably the technology currently powering Oregon’s exchange will live on and be absorbed by another part of the state’s health apparatus.
Both states have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on their insurance exchanges, with little in the way of functionality or accountability to show for it. Massachusetts is looking at a solution offered from hCentive which built exchanges in Colorado, Kentucky and New York. Kentucky has been one of the few real success stories of ACA in terms of sign up and service delivery.
Massachusetts plans to shift all residents who are still looking for insurance over to healthcare.gov until hCentive can complete its work on the new exchange which may still miss the next deadline for coverage in 2015.
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Related posts:
Massachusetts Cuts Relationship With CGI on Health Insurance Marketplace
Oregon Shakes Up Staff, Goes To Paper Applications After Exchange Woes
HHS awards $1.5 billion for insurance exchanges to 11 states
Tags: ACA, CGI, hcentive, health insurance exchange, Massachusetts, obamacare, Oracle, oregon
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Hawaii spent more than $10,000 per new enrollee…
Insurance CEO: Shut down Hawaii health exchange, act now to get waiver from federal government
By Cathy Bussewitz, Associated Press May 9, 2014
HONOLULU (AP) — The chief executive of Hawaii’s largest health insurance company is calling on Hawaii to shut down its beleaguered health insurance exchange, which was set up as part of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
Michael Gold, president and CEO of Hawaii Medical Services Association, says the state shouldn’t keep spending money on the Hawaii Health Connector, a system that he says is financially unsustainable and does not work.
“I think there’s an alternative that Hawaii needs to pursue immediately,” Gold said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Fox reported 74% of those that signed up for Obamacare were people who previously had insurance.
By the end of the year the complete set of stats will unfold and it will be clear to all the epic failure Obama has created.
You guys are, again, totally missing the point on Big Government Programs (BGPs).
Point #1a: BGPs have NOTHING TO DO WITH SOLVING ANY PROBLEM.
Point #1b: The “problem” that the BGP is designed to solve was created by the fed.gov in the first place.
Point #2a: BGPs exist solely to increase the power of the “elected” officials that sponsor and run them.
Point #2b: “Elected” offices then rely on the beneficiaries of these programs for votes for re-election. Vote buying with federal tax dollars, what a scam, wish I thought of that!
Point #3: BGPs are make work (=graft) monies to reward political backers/donors of the “elected” officials as a reward for their loyalty. That billions of dollars were spent in this failed Obamacare roll out matters not. I will bet my doomstead that these website contacts went to political cronies of the Democrat administration of their respective states, as the federal programs went to the company of one of Moochelle’s Princeton-is-such-a mean-place-for-blacks classmates.
Point #4: BGP result in a whole host of horrific unintended side effects, which will require yet ANOTHER BGP to “solve”.
You can go back to Point #1 and go round and round until you can stack $100 bills to the orbit of Pluto if you don’t have anything better to do, like go to work and pay your taxes and mow your lawn – suckers.
So, when you look at from the perspective of the big government types, it’s great, all their constituents/backers get paid off and the fed.gov guys get even more power.
When you look at from the perspective of the Real World, where math/results/bottom lines actually matter, it is a crack up boom in the making.
(I put “elected” in the ” ” becuz I have totally lost faith in the electoral process when Obama can get 140% of the votes in a precinct or Al Franken got more votes cast in a county than the total number of registered voters, you get my drift.)
Over $5 Billion and Counting for Obamacare Websites
By Brianna Ehley,
The Fiscal Times
May 13, 2014
You thought Healthcare.gov had problems?
A handful of state-run exchange websites—which cost nearly half a billion dollars to build—still don’t work, nearly seven months after they first went live.
Largely inoperable state exchange websites in Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon and Nevada have racked up $474 million federal tax dollars so far, Politico first reported. The costs will continue to climb as states scramble to salvage the flailing websites or transition onto the federal exchange.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/05/13/Over-5-Billion-and-Counting-Obamacare-Websites#sthash.C6Fyarcm.dpuf