PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – The man who led Oregon’s problem-plagued health insurance exchange has submitted his resignation. Rocky King has been on medical leave since Dec. 2. His resignation is effective at the end of his leave, March 5. The news came in a letter sent by King to the board of Cover Oregon on Wednesday. The board wrote to the agency’s staff on Thursday that it would begin looking for a permanent director.
King is the second official connected to the exchange to resign. He came under fire when the online enrollment system failed to go live in October. Technical problems with the exchange have been an embarrassment to the state and forced Oregonians to apply using paper applications. The state had to hire or reassign nearly 500 people to process applications by hand.
As of this week, the state’s online exchange still hasn’t launched. About 38,000 people had enrolled through Cover Oregon using the manual process, 14,000 in private plans and 24,000 through the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s version of Medicaid.