Saturday, March 29, 2014

Some states are taking the Digital out of Digital Governemnt

Recently the New York Times ran an article entitled Deadline Near, Health Signups Show Disparity.  It highlighted the point that was previously discussed in class, which was that individual states largely determined consumers experience when signing up for Affordable Care Act, not Healthcare.gov. 

The article points out that Texas residents believe the Affordable Care Act is banned in their state because the online insurance marketplace is such a mess.  We saw similar results in class where we showed that although all users start out their search on healthcare.gov, each state has their own website where the consumer sings up on their states marketplace. 

This mismanagement of synchronizations between the government’s Healthcare.gov and the respective state sights cannot be blamed on the federal government.  No reasonable person would expect that the government should have complete oversight of each states marketplace. Furthermore, it would place too much of a burden on the government to manage and dictate how each state runs their respective online marketplace.

Not coincidentally, politics seems to be one of the driving forces of states with robust websites versus states who are lacking enrollments.  Rhode Island and Colorado have gone as far as creating “pop-up” stores with the mission of increase signups in a specific region where enrollment was lagging. 


This is alarming; in this day and age where the reach of the internet can reach millions within seconds, states still choose to market a service the same as a 4 year old would selling lemonade at her lemonade stand.  Why wouldn't these states put up notifications on their respective website, run stories on the news, or hold a press conference where governors or mayors are lacking enrollment? The states are clearly not living up to Digital Government!

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