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!
ReplyDeleteFantastic blog you got here,I enjoyed reading some of your posts.
Ecommerce Solutions in Coventry
CMS Website design Coventry
Web Content Management System Coventry