Whats next for Maryland health care exchange?
Despite a lot of boosterism from Governor Martin OMalley, Marylands health care exchange has been plagued by problems. The website problems culminated in late February with the state firing Noridian Healthcare Solutions, the main IT contractor for the site. Optum/QSSI is taking over the contract on an interim basis.
Now Maryland must decide whether to partner with the federal exchange, healthcare.gov, join a consortium of states, or use another states technology. A report by state budget analysts said one possibility was adopting a successful state system, like Connecticut; but doing so could take up to a year. Media reports say that partnering with the federal exchange is unlikely.
The budget analysts report says that the Maryland websites problem in determining Medicaid eligibility could cost the state as much as $30.5 million.
Stay tuned.