The end officially has come for Hawaii’s troubled Obamacare health insurance exchange.
The Hawaii Health Connector, established as a nonprofit organization in 2011 — though funded by the federal and state governments — ceased operations today after a bumpy two years plagued by computer glitches, financial problems and enrollment delays.
About 22 full-time Connector employees were to be laid off by today, while another 20 temporary outreach workers also lost their jobs. The Connector’s remaining grants of about
$70 million will transfer to the state sometime in December, said Jeff Kissel, the Connector’s executive director. However, the state only can use the money to do outreach for new enrollment and help defray some of the costs of transferring Connector operations to the state, he said.
“Now that the state has assumed the responsibility for enrollment in healthcare.gov and is supporting the federal marketplace, (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) is willing to release more grant funds,” said Kissel, who earlier announced he would be resigning today to join a Washington, D.C.-based energy think tank. “The problem before was that the Connector didn’t have the ability to perform financially. The state has basically assured the federal government that these functions will continue and they will be state funded.”
The state is moving Obamacare enrollments to the federal healthcare.gov site, though the transition has been difficult thus far and no enrollment numbers have been disclosed. The Connector said it enrolled nearly 40,000 people over the past year via the health insurance marketplace, though the state says that number is more like 20,000.
Gov. David Ige’s administration decided to abandon the troubled Connector, which has struggled since its launch in October 2013 to meet enrollment targets, provide satisfactory service and raise enough money to be self-sustaining. It burned through $130 million of
$204 million in federal money granted to build the exchange but not to fund ongoing operations.
Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees health insurance exchanges, determined that Hawaii was not in compliance with the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, including a provision to be financially self-sustaining as of Jan. 1, 2015.
The state is urging individuals with Obamacare to re-enroll by Dec. 15 to ensure there is no lapse in their coverage.
“We’re all working together now to try to make this as smooth a process as possible for the customers who are dependent upon qualified health plans for individuals and families,” Kissel added. “I think enrollment should remain the same because Hawaii has such a very small percentage of people who are not insured.”
