Zwei Saturday Obamacare Schadenfreude

Another warm, moist, cloudy day here, and it looks like most of the next week will continue in that vein.  Good for the garden.

Obamacare Schadenfreude is entering its customary weekend lull, with only two reports.

Couldn't happen to a better state: Massachusetts to pour another 121 million into their Obamacare hole exchange: State Obamacare board pouring $121M more into `lousy situation'

The Health Connector board approved a plan to spend $121 million to salvage the state’s troubled Obamacare system today, insisting the exchange is so broken they have no other choice.

“The reality is, this is it,” said Sarah Iselin, the state’s Obamacare czar. “When we look at what we can reasonably do for the fall, this is it. I wish we had more choices, but we don’t. We’re making the best of a really lousy situation.

Federal taxpayers will be asked to shell out the cost of pursuing a “dual track” of simultaneously implementing software to build a new state exchange and joining the federal Healthcare.gov as a fallback plan.

Connector officials said the cost could fluctuate to as much as $145 million or as low as $100 million.

Though the Patrick Administration had sought to avoid a vote on the plan, board member Dolores Mitchell called for one anyway. The plan passed, 10-1, with board member George Gonser, Jr. objecting over concerns that the costly plan will actually make insurance more expensive.
. . .
The Herald reported today that the state will invoke an emergency provision to skirt normal state procurement regulations and award a no-bid contract to Optum, which will in turn subcontract with hCentive. The Herald also reported that Optum holds a 24 percent stake in hCentive, making the deal that much sweeter for Optum.

And just the hint of corruption.

Why, it's almost enough to make the Federal program look like a good deal: HealthCare.Gov Looks Like A Bargain Compared With State Exchanges

Sometimes there really are economies of scale. And the nation's health insurance exchanges may be a case in point.

As rocky as the rollout of HealthCare.gov was, the federal exchange was relatively efficient in signing up enrollees. Each one cost an average of $647 in federal tax dollars, an analysis finds. It cost an average of $1,503 – well over twice as much – to sign up each person in the 15 exchanges run by individual states and Washington, D.C.

The findings, released Wednesday, were drawn from federal enrollment and funding figures for the exchanges. The author is Jay Angoff, a former Missouri Insurance Commissioner and one-time director of the Health and Human Services office in charge of getting the health exchanges going.

Remember, the original plan for the Obamacare was that each state would have it's own exchange, thus increasing the inefficiency.  On the other hand, some states might do it cheaper, and less corruptly, so other states could see how to avoid that. . .

What was unexpected, Angoff said in an interview, is that the five states whose governors and/or legislatures were among the most adamant about resisting the Affordable Care Act — Florida, Texas, Georgia, Virginia and Michigan — ended up with the lowest per-person enrollee costs. Florida's cost per enrollee was just $76; Texas' was $102, and Michigan's $427.

"The states that fought the ACA the hardest ended up with exchanges that have been very efficient," he said.

It seems like that's what's happening.