ObamaCare’s Failed State Exchanges

Federal grants to develop state health exchanges cost more than $1.2 billion, says Peter Suderman, senior editor at Reason Magazine.

$677 million was spent to develop the problem-ridden healthcare.gov, but almost twice that was sent to the states in the form of grants to develop their own exchanges. The District of Columbia and 14 states developed their own exchanges, and seven of them are still not performing even close to adequately.

– Oregon’s exchange was the most disastrous of the state exchanges.

– Maryland received $157.2 million in federal dollars for a site that failed almost simultaneously with its launch.

– Massachusetts made the mistake of hiring the same contractor that built the federal exchange, CGI, and the exchange suffered problems from the beginning.

– Vermont’s $165.2 million in grants could not keep their exchange site — also built by CGI — from failing on its very first day.

– Minnesota’s exchange director resigned in mid-December after taking a tropical vacation amidst site problems and 14 exchange officials were given bonuses even before the launch.

– Nevada enrolled only 16,000 out of the 118,000 that the state had expected to enroll during the open enrollment period, with one exchange board member describing the site’s failure as “catastrophic.”

– Hawaii’s $205 million in federal grants did not seem to go very far. The exchange was taken down for two weeks immediately after launch and enrollment has been very low. Only 4,300 people have signed up, the lowest number in all the states.

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