Maryland's health exchange website, which is best known for falling to pieces on Oct. 1, will be scrapped after $129 million in spending. In April, the Maryland Health Exchange board voted to adopt Connecticut's web application.
At the time officials refused to say they were junking the Noridian-designed system. It was a just revamping ... right.
However, the state can't transfer data from one system to the other.
The fix? Contact 275,000 Medicaid enrollees -- about 75% of the people on the exchange -- and have them log onto a new system and put their information in again.
The just-published April 15 board meeting minutes have this from Carolyn Quattrocki, the governor's office employee who took over as "interim executive director" late last year. The MHBE will
"move them out of the old system through a manual process. She emphasized that the migration will likely occur in phases. Secretary Fitzgerald noted that it is still a work-in-progress, but the Medicaid enrollees will likely receive a notification indicating that they need to re-determine their eligibility status, and directing. The notification will direct them to the website with provide instructions for registration."
How this doesn't qualify as more fail is beyond a mystery.
On May 16 the Exchange reported, out of 313,000 exchange members:
As of April 29, 2014, 275,090 individuals have gained Medicaid coverage in 2014 and remain active in Medicaid.
There's no indication in the minutes of what the cost -- the extra cost -- of essentially starting from zero will be.