http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...-life-support/
HONOLULU – Federal taxpayers dumped more than $205 million into Hawaii's ObamaCare insurance exchange, but after a steady downward spiral the once-highly praised Hawaii Health Connector is on life support.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already restricted grant funds to the Hawaii Health Connector, after telling officials in March it was out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act because of fiscal instability and ongoing IT issues.
With state lawmakers also blocking additional funds, the system is struggling to stay afloat. The governor's office said it is doing what it can to salvage the situation, including approving $30 million to temporarily transition the local portal to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov -- where residents could continue to enroll over the next year while problems with the local site are addressed.
Laurel Johnston, deputy chief of staff for Gov. David Ige, claimed the state will "negotiate the release of federal grant funds" and ensure compliance with the law.
Whether they will succeed remains to be seen. CMS still has to accept the governor's proposal -- and the exchange reportedly is making contingency plans in case the system has to shut down entirely.
The drama has only hardened critics' concerns that millions of taxpayer dollars are going to waste.
"The $200 million was a complete waste of tax dollars that could have been used for much more productive efforts," said Reg Baker, a well-known CPA in Hawaii who for many years was the chief financial officer for the health insurance plan, HMAA.
The news about the Hawaii Health Connector's troubles went national this week when Hawaii's largest daily, the Star Advertiser, broke a story based on a "leaked" draft of the state's report to CMS, which reportedly said the exchange prepared a contingency plan to shut down local operations and transition to federal government control by Sept. 30. The plan purportedly directed that no new enrollees would be accepted by the local exchange after the end of this week, outreach services would conclude May 31, and a 73-member workforce, including staff and consultants, would be laid off by Feb. 28.
The governor's office maintained that was just a draft report and said "recent news reports based on confidential working draft do ents have misrepresented ongoing discussions between the federal government, the state administration and Hawaii Health Connector."
The Connector's executive director Jeff Kissel said the first priority "is to ensure the continuity of coverage for the 37,000 to 40,000 Hawaii residents who are receiving health insurance coverage through Hawaii Health Connector." If CMS does not accept the governor's plan, Hawaii also risks losing $1 billion in matching federal Medicaid funds, according to Ige's office.
Baker told FoxNews.com the state should just abandon plans to keep the local Connector open, and merge with the federal government website. "Piggy-backing on the federal system is the financially smart thing to do," he said.
While many of the state's Democrats praised the ObamaCare exchange when it launched in October 2013, it was riddled with trouble from the start. The web portal never worked properly despite the state spending $74 million on a contract with CGI to build and maintain it. The exchange experienced tremendous staff turnover, with three executive directors appointed in two years. Enrollment reached just over 8,500 in the first year, and as a result, Hawaii was ranked the most costly exchange in the nation at more than $$23,899 per person.
Enrollment never reached the 300,000 number then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, enthusiastically predicted at the opening press conference launching the Connector. The enrollment number also never hit 70,000, the minimum needed to stay financially solvent. At its peak, enrollment reached 37,000, a fraction of the state's 1.4 million people. Hawaii's uninsured population, at 8 percent when the exchange opened, dropped just 2 percent.
"Some folks might suggest that the Connector was 'successful' because of the 30,000 people who signed up, but those numbers are questionable since many already had insurance to begin with, were transferred to the Medicare system or are no longer enrolled, and signups are not as important as the number currently enrolled in the insurance plans offered on the Connector," Baker said, noting each enrollee cost the federal government about $6,666.66.
Millions of dollars went to the failed web portal developed by controversial Montreal-based company, CGI Federal, the same company that developed the botched federal web portal for HealthCare.gov under a $93.7 million contract, but was replaced in January 2014 after numerous enrollees had problems registering.
Besides the fact that Hawaii's web portal did not function properly since the site launched, because it didn't sync with the state Department of Human Services website offering Medicaid, the site had another major technical problem: the Connector's Small Business Health Options Program targeted at small business owners sent garbled data to insurers preventing them from signing up small businesses and their employees.
Hawaii is just the latest state that has struggled to sustain its ObamaCare exchange, at great cost to taxpayers, watchdog group Americans for Tax Reform notes.
Despite the government investing $4.5 billion into state-run exchanges, Oregon, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico and Nevada shut down their operations.
"One wonders where these tens of millions of dollars actually go," ATR President Grover Norquist said.
Baker said the system is failing "for the same reason most businesses fail -- the customers did not see the value of the product they were trying to sell."
Looks like the for-profit corporations developing, running the exchanges were totally incompetent, assisted by incompetence at the state level. That's not the fault of ACA.
The real fault is with the totally ed up for-profit, wealth-sucking health care system with its insane opacity, complexity, and exorbitant pricing, with which ACA was forced to mesh.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 05-15-2015 at 12:20 PM.
Looks like the government was totally incompetent. Which is usually the case when implementing large projects.
people will migrate to the federal exchange while Hawaii gets its together
Certainly, for-profit Oracle screwed your Oregon horribly, and still pocketed $10Ms.
That's on our state government. Government is full of incompetent fools.
Going just like the democrats in congress planned. Bankrupt the states with these expensive mandates, then take it over completely.
Just wait.
The feds will later claim we must go to single;e payer.
State government sure. Doesn't help the federalist libertarian cause though.
As has been pointed out people can just go to the federal exchange if it tanks. Does underline the issues that lobbyists present.
Many states didn't set up exchanges. This is pretty ignorant. Not surprising but it is what it is.
Socialism
So a state exchange for private firms to acquire business is socialism. I guess roads and the power grid are socialist too.
Your ideological puritanism makes you stupid.
... exactly like the F-35, Osprey, St Ronnie's risible "Star Wars" MDA, and 1000s of over-budget, over-schedule FAILED for-profit military and commercial
205M?
This entire pieces seems a bit incoherent. Is the exchange the one run by Hawaii? Or the one done by the Federal government?
The writer seems not to know the difference between the the state-run exchanges and the federal exchange.
I am also not shocked that the states that went it alone couldn't get it to work. The ones that seem to have dropped it are all smaller states.
Four of the states with their own exchanges – Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Washington – have sites that have run especially smoothly, becoming models for states such as Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois and New Mexico that are planning to launch their own sites in 2014.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/10/stateline-health-exchange-aca/3951043/
http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle...-services.html
Ah, here we go. Absent Fox "news" opinionated bloviating, they actually link to something with some information.
So Hawaii was given a block grant, and couldn't make it work.he state was notified in March that Hawaii was out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, because the Connector wasn't financially sustainable at the start of this year and wasn't integrated with the Medicaid system, which determines eligibility for subsidies and tax credits obtained through the exchange. The federal government subsequently restricted grant money to support the Connector and moved to take over its IT functions to allow residents to enroll in coverage through the federal marketplace, healthcare.gov.
Gov. David Ige's administration is negotiating with the federal government to release grant money to avoid the closure of Hawaii's online marketplace, designed to provide subsidized coverage to residents with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income residents.
Shocker, smaller base of potential payors... larger cost per person:
https://kaiserhealthnews.files.wordp...ges-report.pdf
Here is the kicker from the above report:
The states that didn't bother setting up exchanges, and let the Feds do it all, managed to keep the costs lowest.
About all I have learned, or rather, re-learned, is that economies of scale offered by the Federal government keep costs down.
That and Grover Norquist is still a twit.
Nailed it....
these aren't huge: "Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Washington" and work well.Nailed it....
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