After blowing $250 million on its busted Obamacare website, the state of Oregon made a decision on Friday to dump its website and join the federal HealthCare.gov exchange. According to NPR, however, five of the 16 health insurance companies in Oregon lack the computer interface needed to function on the federal Obamacare website.
“So will they go to the expense of setting one up? Or will they stop doing business in Oregon? That’s unclear,” reports NPR.
In addition, the so-called “navigators” who were trained to enroll Oregonians on its broken Cover Oregon system must all now be retrained to sign people up on the federal Obamacare website.
Clyde Hamstreet is Cover Oregon’s third executive in five months. He says the 70,000 Oregonians who signed up for individual plans may end up having to do it all over again in the future as the Oregon Obamacare nightmare is untangled.
“Cover Oregon certainly is going to be around for 2014,” said Hamstreet. “Exactly what Cover Oregon is going to look like in 2015, I think it is too early to say.”
The Wall Street Journal says Oregon’s Obamacare fiasco is “unmatched in its failure.”