The federal government has shelved plans to move the
HealthCare.gov insurance website to a new host, delaying a move
that was supposed to fix reliability problems with the site before
this year's enrollment season.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed a contract
last year to replace Verizon Terremark with Hewlett-Packard Co. as
the host of HealthCare.gov, the site for most people to obtain
health plans under the Affordable Care Act. The Verizon platform
had a series of outages last year that forced down the site and
affected the federal data hub on which all states rely to transmit
information about enrollees' identity and income.
CMS planned to migrate the site to an H-P platform after the
main sign-up period finished in March. But in July, the agency
quietly moved to keep Verizon hosting most parts of the site for
all of the next enrollment season, which starts Nov. 15 and ends
Feb. 15. In a federal contract document justifying the decision,
the agency said it needed to stick with Verizon because it had run
out of time to thoroughly test the H-P platform for the coming
year.
The decision raises new questions about whether HealthCare.gov
will be ready to offer a better experience to millions of Americans
this fall after its troubled debut last year. The move to a
different host had been one key part of the site's overhaul
strategy, and the decision to stay with Verizon is an unexpected
development for insurers and state officials who assumed the change
was still going ahead.
A shortened enrollment period, coupled with millions more
expected users, means the site will face heavier traffic this year.
Contractors are still racing to complete other parts of the site's
revamp.
"It's going to be improved, but given all the challenges, it
will be far from perfect for open enrollment 2015," said Joel Ario,
a former Obama administration health official who is now managing
director at Manatt Health Solutions, which consults on
implementation of the health law.
Aaron Albright, a spokesman for CMS, said the decision
represented "the best path forward to ensure a successful second
open enrollment period. It was made in order to improve the
consumer experience and have sufficient time for testing." Verizon
and H-P declined to comment on the new agreement.
Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com and
Stephanie Armour at stephanie.armour@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires