President Obama in Maryland in 2009. Photo: Matthew Cavanaugh/EPA/Newscom
The board overseeing Maryland’s online health insurance exchange voted unanimously last night to scrap its $125.5 million website and use technology implemented in Connecticut.
The Baltimore Sun reported that the board for the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange decided the new website will adopt technology by Deloitte Consulting used on Connecticut’s health exchange. The move could cost state taxpayers an additional $40 million to $50 million for the software company to develop the site, the Sun reported.
Heavily Democratic Maryland chose to create and run an online insurance exchange as part of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. But the state’s exchange, Maryland Health Connection, has struggled to sign up residents since the website’s disastrous launch. The head of the exchange resigned and the board fired its main contractor.
Maryland is the first state to switch its glitch-ridden website for another one, but it’s not the only state exchange to have major technological problems.
Oregon’s online exchange, Cover Oregon, has cost taxpayers $170 million to date but has yet to sign up one applicant completely through its website. Instead, residents have been forced to fill out paper applications or go through call centers to sign up for Obamacare’s health plans.
The federal online exchange, HealthCare.gov, also has had a rough rollout. The website routinely crashed, even on Monday — deadline day for the first open enrollment period.
This story was produced by The Foundry’s news team. Nothing here should be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation.
