ObamaCare Runs Into Computer Trouble
ObamaCare’s state based health
insurance exchanges are already facing serious political
resistance: Several Republican governors,
including Florida’s Rick Scott and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal,
have
said they won’t create exchanges; others, like New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have put exchange creation on hold
until the Supreme Court rules.
But even states that have agreed to create exchanges are running
into sizable technical hurdles building the required IT
infrastructure,
reports Politico:
Even states that are solidly committed to pursuing an exchange
are facing major logistical challenges in building the computer
systems that will be able to handle enrollment when exchanges open
for business in 2014.That’s largely because the system that will actually connect
people to the right coverage will have to “talk” to many other
systems, and the systems don’t use a common language. This includes
a yet-to-be built federal “data hub” with tax and citizenship info,
the enrollment systems of multiple private insurers selling
exchange plans and — hardest of all — state Medicaid enrollment
systems, many of which are not yet fully computerized.Even if all the states that have taken the biggest steps to
launch exchanges — fewer than 20 at the moment — were charging full
speed ahead, there’s a lot of concern that they’ll have to switch
to a “partnership” exchange model, with the federal Department of
Health and Human Services running key functions. That’s because
their IT systems could fail final tests in the months before the
exchanges open in 2014. And that would mean losing some of the
ability to customize the enrollment process for a state’s
needs.
I tend to think that in the midst of all the political
controversy surrounding the law, people have underestimated the
logistical challenges of implementing ObamaCare. These sorts of
technical concerns haven’t garned the same level of attention as,
say, they Supreme Court challenge to the law, but they’ve been
around for a while, and they’re fairly serious: In “Rogue
States,” my October 2010 feature looking at state
implementation of the law, I noted early worries about
You can read the rest of this article at: http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/04/obamacare-runs-into-computer-trouble
Short URL: http://www.txwclp.org/?p=10681
Posted by rbutler
on Jun 4 2012. Filed under Libertarian News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
