Massachusetts to Replace Dysfunctional Health Insurance Exchange

Massachusetts officials announced plans to follow Oregon's example and drop its health insurance exchange which is beset with technical snags. Massachusetts wants to build a new health insurance marketplace instead of using Healthcare.gov for people to enroll under. The state wants to build a new health marketplace site by using software used by Colorado and Kentucky.

Massachusetts decided to use software from hCentive Inc. and have it functional by 15th of November 2014. They would also connect with the federal exchange which could be used as a backup in case the new exchange was not ready to handle enrollments by fall. This would cost the state $100 million which would be 30% lower than the approximate cost of repairing the current site.

Massachusetts original health exchange was created in 2006 - it was considered the model for The Affordable Care Act - but faced problems since the beginning of enrollments began last October. Due to technical glitches consumers applied on paper applications instead of online enrollments. Till date the system is trying to sort out the eligibility of more than 190,000people who had enrolled. All these enrollees were temporarily placed on Medicaid.

References:

Hannah Punitha (IRDA Licence Number: 2710062)

Ed Walton May 2014

Source: Medindia