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Maryland #Obamacare Fail: State exchange site to be ditched for new system

Technical difficulties
The epic Obamacare fail continues.

Team Obama, struggling to up their enrollment numbers, can’t be happy at all about this. Via Fox News [1]:

With just days to go before open enrollment ends on March 31, Maryland officials are reportedly planning to abandon its glitch-ridden ObamaCare website and replace the health exchange with technology from Connecticut’s marketplace.

The Washington Post reported late Friday that the board of the Maryland exchange will vote on changing the system that has cost at least $125.5 million at a meeting on Tuesday, the day after the end of the first enrollment period under ObamaCare.

Maryland residents will still be able to use the exchange as it is being replaced with technology from the Connecticut exchange, Access Health CT, officials told The Post. The state is expected to tap consulting firm Deloitte for the overhaul.

Maryland’s online health exchange has been bedeviled by computer problems that have made it difficult for people to enroll in private health care plans since its debut Oct. 1. Although improvements have been made, computer problems remain.

Maryland and Connecticut are among several states that have built their own health exchanges. So far, the state says 49,293 Maryland residents have enrolled in private health plans as of last week, far short of the state’s original goal of 150,000 enrollments.

O’Malley told reporters on Friday to expect an announcement on the future of the exchange next week, The Post reported.

“We still have stuck applications. We still wrestle with it every day,” O’Malley said. “The clock was ticking, and we have been changing the flat tires on this rolling car for the last five, going on six months now. And it has gotten better with every new fix applied to it, [but it is] still not working as it was supposed to work.”

A report by Maryland analysts last month found that the state’s defective health care exchange could cost the state $30.5 million because the state is unable to determine whether people remain eligible for Medicaid due to problems with the exchange. The 31-page report also said “there is significant uncertainty about the way forward” with future information technology spending that will be needed.

Last month, Maryland’s health exchange board voted to fire the state’s prime information technology contractor, Noridian Healthcare Solutions.

Wow. The fail runs deep with the Maryland site design/IT crew – not to mention, well, you know with the law itself and the liberal politicos who advocated for it and ultimately helped craft it and eventually shove it down the throats of the American people. But that goes without saying, of course.

And as to that 6 million “enrollment figure” pulled out of the collective a** of the White House earlier this week, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) was right on the money in seriously questioning it [2]:

Higher enrollment numbers have not impressed Republicans, who plan more votes to repeal or change parts of the law. They also quickly noted that not everyone who signs up has paid their premiums: Insurers estimate that about 15 to 20 percent haven’t paid yet, so they aren’t fully enrolled, although the number is in flux.

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), speaking before the White House released the updated numbers, predicted that the final enrollment figures would become a Washington parlor game, especially since many people hadn’t paid.

“Being enrolled doesn’t mean it works, you have to collect money,” he said. He also questioned how many of the people signing up had done so because they had little choice after their old plan was cancelled.

“Canceling millions of policies, then bragging when they sign up for another one is a little odd, don’t you think?,” tweeted Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Yeah, and exactly how many people who weren’t able to get insurance prior to Obamacare signed up on the exchanges and actually got on a plan other than Medicaid? I mean, isn’t that what the law was supposedly created for? Surprisingly, the media didn’t think to ask any such questions of their own about the the administration’s numbers. Go figure!  ;)