The Obamacare Rollout: The Administration Needs a Plan B––Now!

It is now becoming clear that the Obama administration will not have Health.care.gov fixed by December 1 so hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions, of people will be able to smoothly enroll by January 1.

Why do I say that? Look at this from the administration spokesperson's daily Healthcare.gov progress report on Friday:

Essentially what is happening is people [those working on the fixes] are going through the entire process. As we have fixed certain pieces of functionality, like the account creation process, we're seeing volume go further down the application. We're identifying new issues that we need to be in a position to troubleshoot.

Does that sound like the kind of report you would expect if they were on track to fix this in less than three weeks? Their biggest problem is that they admittedly don't know what they don't know.

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 spend $250 million on a two-year marketing campaign. By comparison California Senator Barbara Boxer spent $28 million on her 2010 statewide reelection campaign while her challenger spent another $22 million.

Private Health Insurance Exchanges––Will They Save Money? Will the Idea Grow?

Private health insurance exchanges will save employers money but not make health insurance cheaper.

Because private health insurance will save employers money, they will grow.

Will Private Insurance Exchanges Reduce Health Insurance Costs?

There's lots of buzz these days about private insurance exchanges. The idea is to give employees more choice in purchasing their own individual coverage from a big menu of insurance companies and plan alternatives, and as a result, create more robust competition and thereby help control costs.

But I think private insurance exchanges will have just the opposite effect on the price of large employer health insurance plans.