But it will be worth it!
"State vows easier time on rebuilt Mass. Health Connector site" by Felice J. Freyer | Globe Staff October 09, 2014
When people shop online for health insurance through the Massachusetts Health Connector next month, they will have a radically different experience than the trouble they encountered last year, state officials promised Thursday.
Last year’s website, redesigned to meet the terms of the Affordable Care Act, never worked properly, leaving people unable to buy subsidized health insurance. This year, officials say, the newly rebuilt website will enable users to cruise smoothly from log-in to plan choice.
The total cost of the Connector upgrade is $254 million, most of it funded by the federal government. The state will pay $42 million of that, $26.1 million more than it would have cost state taxpayers had the site worked in the first place.
Related: hCentive Saved MassHealth Website
We got so $crewed, and you $tart to wonder if it is on purpo$e.
“We’re about to deliver better, faster access to health security,” Maydad Cohen, the special adviser to Governor Deval Patrick who is overseeing the repair project, told the Connector’s board Thursday.
Still, Cohen cautioned that there will be glitches, as with any website rollout.
People who do not get health insurance through their employers use the Connector to shop for coverage and get federal and state subsidies. As many as a quarter-million people are expected to enroll this way, with the portals opening Nov. 15.
The part of the system that may prove problematic involves getting enrollees’ information and payments into the hands of insurers.
Yeah, it's all fixed BUT!!
Known as the “back end,” this always-thorny process is especially difficult for Massachusetts because the information technology company Dell handles billing, which means there must be precise communication among the Connector, Dell, and 11 insurance companies offering numerous plans.
I'm tired of the excuses, and this is one of that major problems with Obummercare. What sphincters to be shoving this cash grab down our throats.
“I’m hopeful that we’re heading in the right direction, but there’s more work that needs to be done,” said Lora Pellegrini, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.
PFFFFFFT!
I better get to a doctor.
Jon Kingsdale, who was the Connector’s director in its early years and now consults with other states on their exchanges, said the “back end” issues have posed the biggest problems for the federal exchange and other state exchanges. “It’s exponentially more complicated” than the rest of the website, he said.
So you signed up, and that's about all you did because beyond that the insurer doesn't have accurate information -- if they can even find it.
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“This is really very, very good results,” said John Santelli, chief information officer for Optum, the company hired to manage the website repair, adapting off-the-shelf software from its subsidiary, hCentive. He said Optum would endeavor to fix all the defects.
I really am feeling sick.
“There’s a point in the project where you want to be fixing more defects than you’re discovering,” Cohen said, “and we are there. And that’s where you want to be.”
What is it about the state and the endless stream of positive-spin bull$hit they constantly troll, huh? WTF? At least the portals are not open until after the elections!
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The total cost figure for the Connector overhaul — $254 million — covers just the technology costs and does not include administrative expenses and the cost of temporary coverage programs set up for people who, because of the software failure, could not determine whether they were eligible for assistance. Most of those people were placed in a temporary Medicaid program paid for by the state and federal government.
Meaning the COST is WAY, WAY MORE!
So WHEN does the OBFUSCATION and LYING from GOVERNMENT and MEDIA stop, huh?
A dispute about the ultimate cost to taxpayers of the website’s failure heated up again Thursday. The Pioneer Institute, a public policy research firm, last month pegged the cost at $1 billion, a figure Patrick dismissed at the time as spurious. On Thursday, the institute reasserted its findings in an open letter to the governor, predicting that taxpayers will be hit in coming years with huge costs related to the failure.
(I really can't type anything because I am absolutely furious at this failed state government and the prick who has been in charge the last eight years. What a disaster was this guy Deval, despite the Globe's public relations fawning and fellatio regarding him)
But Glen Shor, chairman of the Connector board and state secretary of administration and finance, continued to assert that the cost of the temporary coverage program falls within the state’s budget....
So what services had to be cut, or do you just have a cool billion lying around somewhere while we all suffer out here?
A total of 306,000 people have enrolled in the program since January, although it is unknown how many are actually eligible for Medicaid. The state has spent $321 million on their care, at least half of which will be reimbursed by the federal government.
Also on Thursday, the State House News Service reported that US Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, questioned the legality of Massachusetts’ temporary Medicaid program in a letter to the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
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Maybe you can get your healthcare through Walmart.
Related: NY: Wal-Mart levied fictional ‘sugar tax’ on soda
They were just looking out for your health, con$umer.
"Wal-Mart to scale back sharply on super center openings" October 15, 2014
(AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to dramatically scale back expansion of its U.S. supercenters next year while investing more in e-commerce.
The AmeriKan con$umer is dead.
The company also is conducting a major review of its U.S. Wal-Mart business and will update investors on its plans early next year, executives told investors at the retailer's annual analyst meeting today.
The review comes as it aims to revive business at Wal-Mart discount stores, which have not recorded growth in sales at locations open at least a year for six straight quarters.
Looks like a recession to me.
The business, which accounts for 60 percent of the company's total sales, have been plagued with broader issues, including a slowly recovering economy that hasn't benefited its low-income shoppers.
I keep telling you, we all know who the beneficiaries of the $hit economy have been.
But the company has also been tripped up by its own mistakes like being out of stock on items shoppers want.
Even the supply chain is breaking down!
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Related: The Market is Manic Depre$$ive
Are they on MassHealth?
