Oregon is the first state to give up technological control of its Obamacare website and join the federal exchange, an irony considering how busted HealthCare.gov was six months ago.
As recently as 2013, Oregon was expected to have one of the best Obamacare exchanges in the country. But it never managed to get the website to work properly. Residents could not enroll in the Cover Oregon exchange on their own. They needed to use paper or get the help of an insurance broker.
Alex Pettit, the state’s information technology officer, made the recommendation to go to the federal exchange at an exchange advisory board meeting on Thursday. He told the panel that repairing the state’s site would cost about $78 million, which was deemed to be too much, take too long and be too risky. But switching to the federal system would cost between $4 million and $6 million, he said.
