Healthcare.gov Still Under Construction
Though the website has been functioning for consumers buying insurance coverage, Politico reports that critical, back-end elements are still being built, which could have adverse effects on insurers and ultimately on next year's premiums. Meanwhile, The Washington Post extracts lessons from the rollouts of state exchanges -- some of which ran smoothly and others of which were troubled.
Politico: Behind The Scenes, Much Of Healthcare.Gov Is Still Under Construction
The Obamacare website may work for people buying insurance, but beneath the surface, HealthCare.gov is still missing massive, critical pieces — and the deadline for finishing them keeps slipping. As a result, the system’s “back end” is a tangle of technical workarounds moving billions of taxpayer dollars and consumer-paid premiums between the government and insurers. The parts under construction are essential for key functions such as accurately paying insurers. The longer they lag, experts say, the likelier they’ll trigger accounting problems that could leave the public on the hook for higher premium subsidies or health care costs (Cheney, 4/26).
The Washington Post: Deltek: What Contractors Can Learn From The Rollout Of The State Exchanges
The open enrollment period for federally mandated health insurance is now closed, and it’s a fitting time to look back on how the state health insurance exchanges performed. Much attention was paid to the difficult rollout of the federal exchange; however, the state exchanges — with rollouts that ranged from smooth to catastrophic — are also worth examining (Dixon, 4/27).