Will the Affordable Care Act's Health Insurance Exchanges Be Ready On Time? The Obama Administration's Top Secret Enterprise

Last week, I received my weekly email update from the Maryland health insurance exchange:



Maryland Health Connection completed its Final Detailed Design Review (FDDR) live system demo on Thursday, May 30. The FDDR is a federal stage-gate required of all state-based exchanges. Maryland Health Connection successfully demonstrated end-to-end enrollment of a split family scenario including user

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Flawed Analysis––Medical Loss Ratio Rules Led to $1.9 billion in Lower Premiums

The Kaiser Family Foundation is out with a study contending that the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) requirements of the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") saved consumers $1.9 billion in premiums in 2012:

"So how might these (new MLR requirements) changes have affected premiums? As noted above, one way to address this question is to compute what these consumers would have paid in premiums in 2011 and

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Rate Shock in California!––The New Health Insurance Exchange Plans––Comparing Apples to Oranges to Grapefruit

I have to say I was surprised with the press reports last week that there wasn't "rate shock" in California when the California exchange offered preliminary information about their new plans and rates.

At least one prominent health actuarial group had predicted a 30% baseline increase in costs for California's new health insurance exchange plans under the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare").

As

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A Health Insurance Exchange That Won't Be a "Train Wreck"

Every week, I get an email from the Maryland Health Connection––the state run health insurance exchange.

Maryland is one of a minority of states that are building their own Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") exchange.

You can go to their site and sign up for these weekly updates.

Let me suggest that Maryland is an example of what an on-track and well organized effort looks like for any exchange

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Implementation of the Affordable Care Act––More Evidence That Rate Shock is Coming

The Society of Actuaries is out with another estimate of health
insurance rate increases as a result of implementation of the
Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare").

While there is a great deal of difference between states, they are estimating an average increase of 31.5% on account of the new underwriting reform and benefit expansion requirements of the health law:



These rate increase

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Six Months to Go –– Will the Health Insurance Exchanges Be Ready on Time? Survey: Health Plan Execs Don't Think So

As the Obama administration continues its top secret effort to build federal insurance exchanges in about 34 states while 16 states are doing it on their own, that continues to be the big question.

HHS is using IT consulting firm CGI for much of the work on the exchanges and the federal data hub. CGI has their plate full since they are not only working on the federal exchange but also doing work

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The Cost to Launch the California Health Insurance Exchange is $910 million––Does That Sound Like a Lot to You?

So far California has received $910 million in federal grants to launch its new health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare").

The California exchange, "Covered California," has so far awarded a $183 million contract to Accenture to build the website, enrollment, and eligibility system and another $174 million to operate the exchange for four years.

The state will also

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