Mass. faces July deadline on health insurance enrollment
Bay State health officials face an early July deadline to prove that their new plan to develop a functional online health insurance enrollment portal can be operational by the fall, or else the state could be forced by the Obama administration to join the federal exchange for at least a year.
In response to the deeply troubled rollout of the state’s online health marketplace, Gov. Deval Patrick and his team developed a dual-track strategy to try for a second time to build a state-based exchange with an off-the-shelf software product made by Virginia-based hCentive.
“Every day we know that the key risk area is the aggressive timeline,” said Maydad Cohen, the governor’s former deputy chief of staff who recently took over the exchange project from Sarah Iselin, who returned to her job at Blue Cross Blue Shield after developing the strategy for the administration.
Cohen also announced that the state received approval Wednesday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to extend through the end of the year existing subsidized Commonwealth Care plans and the temporary Medicaid coverage extended to more than 160,000 people who could not enroll in the federal plan due to the technical problems that plagued the state site.
The extension is the second reprieve given to the state by the federal government that has allowed Connector officials to keep nearly 90,600 residents on their existing subsidized plans while the state works to make online enrollment in new Affordable Care Act-compliant plans possible. Another 126,281 Commonwealth Care subscribers were transitioned to MassHealth in January under the ACA’s new expanded Medicaid coverage.
Lora Pellegrini, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, said that while the Connector should be applauded for the progress it has made to keep people insured and put the website project back on track, it will be important not to “lose sight” of the importance of moving people quickly off temporary MassHealth to their ACA coverage.
“While the reduction in the number of uninsured is significant, the ultimate test of success will be whether the commonwealth is able to maintain these gains when individuals transition out of temporary coverage and into permanent coverage where they may be required to pay for all or some of their health insurance premiums,” Pellegrini said.
Connector officials will meet in early July with officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to prove that the hCentive option is sufficiently developed and on track to go live in time for the next open enrollment period starting in November.
Administration and Finance Secretary Glen Shor said the administration has identified at least $40 million in grants previously awarded to the state to help with the implementation of the ACA that can be used to reduce the state’s request for additional CMS funding. The Connector has put a preliminary estimate of $121 million on the dual-track project, but has yet to finalize a contract with its new IT vendor, Optum.
Shor noted that, to date, the state has spent $65 million of the $175 million it received from the federal government to build the original exchange, but it remains unclear how much will be left over once other expenses are paid.
While it remains unclear how much additional money CMS will be willing to commit to the state’s rebuild of its health exchange website, Cohen said, “No one said the cost of $121 million, which everyone recognizes was a preliminary number, was too high. As expected everyone is asking us to work on how we can reduce and really stabilize that number to be firm and come together with our project plan.”
Shor said, “We all have an interest in being as cost conscious as possible.”
Shor noted that despite the unexpected coverage options being deployed to make up for the failure of the web exchange and the state adding nearly 300,000 new members since December in MassHealth and Connector plans exceeding budget expectations, total costs are similar to original projections for fiscal 2014. Current spending projections anticipate $6.08 billion for MassHealth and the Connector, just under the $6.11 billion budgeted.
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