A new study released by the Foundation for Government Accountability has confirmed that voters don’t like Obamacare state exchanges and will oppose any effort to construct new ones in a post King v. Burwell world. With over $4.5 billion in taxpayer funds spent constructing the first set of 15 websites, who can blame them?
When the Supreme Court rules in King v. Burwell, 37 states may have to consider setting up state exchanges if the court invalidates federal subsidies, as many experts predict.
For each individual they enrolled, state exchanges spent thousands of dollars constructing hard-to-use websites. Hawaii spent a whopping $23,899 on its website per enrollee in year one, while the DC, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont exchanges all spent over $5,000 for each enrollee.
While it spent “only” $4,469 per enrollee, Oregon may be the worst performing exchange. After nearly four years to prepare, “Cover Oregon,” as the state’s exchange was known, was not ready by its October 1 deadline. When the website remained unusable months later, Cover Oregon was forced to send out paper applications to thousands of Oregonians.
Despite repeated warnings from state officials that the website would not be ready on time, then-Governor Kitzhaber claimed to have not learned about the dire state of the website until late October.
Kitzhaber, then in a tough reelection campaign, put Patricia McCaig, a trusted campaign consultant nicknamed the “princess of darkness,” in charge of running the website. Eventually, the decision was made to move to the federal exchange in April of 2014. However, many believe it was driven entirely by Kitzhaber’s advisors, with no independent evaluation to determine the most cost effective move ever taking place. The cost of migrating to the federal system cost taxpayers another $41 million.
In the end, the only thing taxpayers had to show for almost $350 million in funds was a bizarre acid-trip themed television ad that was used to promote the now failed exchange.
With experiences like Oregon, voters are understandably opposed to new state exchanges. In fact, fully half of respondents would be less likely to vote for their state legislator if he or she voted to set up a state exchange website.
Instead, voters want states to work with Congress to reform Obamacare and provide Americans a system with greater flexibility and patient choice.
Fortunately, leaders in both chamber of Congress have already begun developing contingency plans that empower Americans. Last month, Senators Orrin Hatch (R- Utah), Lamar Alexander (R- Tenn.), and John Barrasso (R- Wyo.) released a Washington Post op-ed on their post King v. Burwell plan that would “create a bridge away from Obamacare” and “give states the freedom and flexibility to create better, more competitive health insurance markets offering more options and different choices.”
A day later, Congressmen Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), and John Kline (R-Minn.) released their own proposal for an “off-ramp out of Obamacare toward patient-centered health care.”
The disastrous first set of state exchanges left taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars and let state bureaucrats run wild with virtually zero oversight. Moving forward, there should be no doubt that this cannot be repeated in a post King v. Burwell world.
See below for information on much each of the 15 original state exchanges spent per enrollee in year one (2014).
|
State |
Enrollees in first year |
Total Federal grant $ for website |
Total spent on exchange per enrollee |
|
California |
1,405,102 |
$1,065,683,056 |
$758 |
|
Colorado |
125,402 |
$184,986,696 |
$1,475 |
|
Connecticut |
79,192 |
$175,870,423 |
$2,221 |
|
D.C. |
10,714 |
$195,141,152 |
$18,214 |
|
Hawaii |
8,592 |
$205,342,270 |
$23,899 |
|
Kentucky |
82,747 |
$289,303,526 |
$3,496 |
|
Maryland |
67,757 |
$190,080,144 |
$2,805 |
|
Massachusetts |
31,695 |
$224,908,758 |
$7,096 |
|
Minnesota |
48,495 |
$189,363,527 |
$3,905 |
|
Nevada |
45,390 |
$101,001,068 |
$2,225 |
|
New York |
370,451 |
$575,079,804 |
$1,552 |
|
Oregon |
68,308 |
$305,236,587 |
$4,469 |
|
Rhode Island |
28,485 |
$152,574,404 |
$5,356 |
|
Vermont |
38,048 |
$199,718,542 |
$5,249 |
|
Washington |
163,207 |
$302,333,280 |
$1,852 |
|
Total |
2,573,585 |
$4,356,623,237 |
$1,693 |