Consumers unable to update healthcare.gov data with deadline looming

Hundreds of thousands of people risk losing subsidized health insurance if they don't resubmit immigration information by the end of next week, but many have been unable to comply because of glitches with healthcare.gov. Other stories look at the millions spent on healthcare.gov and at exchange developments in Connecticut, Oregon and Washington.

USA Today: Consumers Deal With Insurance Deadline, Site Glitches
Hundreds of thousands of people risk losing their new health insurance policies if they don't resubmit citizenship or immigration information to the government by the end of next week -- but the federal Healthcare.gov site remains so glitchy that they are having a tough time complying. Consumers are being forced to send their information multiple times, and many can't access their accounts at all, immigration law experts and insurance agents say (O'Donnell, 8/28).

The Washington Post: How You End Up Spending $800 Million On Healthcare.Gov
Signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act has proven to be its own kind of jobs act, especially when it comes to the Washington-area IT community. When, in several places, the bill called for the creation of an "Internet website" to allow Americans to find and sign up for new health insurance coverage, it opened the tap on hundreds of millions of dollars that would eventually go to creating healthcare.gov's front end and back end, as well as a small universe of accompanying digital sites. On Wednesday, the office of Daniel Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, put out a report detailing the dozens of contracts that went into building out the Federal Marketplace project. And a look at each in the disaggregate paints a picture of an effort far more sweeping than even that suggested by the half-billion dollars the federal government has already paid out to implement the digital side of the health insurance law (Scola, 8/27).

Connecticut Mirror: Access Health CT's IT Chief To Lead Agency As Interim Boss
Jim Wadleigh, the top information technology official at Connecticut's health insurance exchange, will lead the agency on an interim basis after chief executive Kevin Counihan leaves for a top federal job next week. The exchange''s board plans to conduct a national search to replace Counihan, but it's anticipated to take months. That means Wadleigh will be leading the agency, Access Health CT, at the start of the next open enrollment period for private health insurance, which begins Nov. 15 (Levin Becker, 8/27).

The Seattle Times: State To Offer More Health-Insurance Choices Next Year
Ninety individual health plans sold by 10 insurers will likely make their way into Washington's exchange marketplace for 2015, if the Washington Health Benefit Exchange board approves them Thursday, as expected. The Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC) also approved two insurers' exchange plans for small businesses, including the first to sell small-business plans statewide in Washington: Moda Health Plan (Ostrom, 8/27).

Oregonian: Cover Oregon Needs Oracle's Help To Avoid Delays In Federal Health Exchange Transition
A key portion of the work under way on the troubled Cover Oregon health exchange project -- that affecting people enrolling for the state's Medicaid program -- may not be ready as planned when the new federally-assisted exchange "goes live" in November, The Oregonian has learned. And it appears that Oregon's legal dispute with Oracle America over the exchange is not helping the matter. The new obstacles involve Oracle, which highlights an uneasy reality. Despite having accused the California software giant of lies, poor work and fraud in court, the state still needs Oracle's help (Budnick, 8/28).