News that the board of Oregon’s failed state-based marketplace, set up under the Affordable Care Act, voted to move to the Federal site generated heavy national coverage over the weekend. Friday night, the CBS Evening News (4/25, 6:40 p.m. EST) reported, “Today, the state of Oregon said that after months of trying, it cannot get its state health insurance web site to work. It hasn’t signed a single customer, and it is pulling the plug. It is the first state to do that.” CBS’ Nancy Cordes said, “the board of Oregon’s exchange admitted defeat, voting unanimously to stop trying to fix the web site. It is a $248 million failure, but state health officials calculated it would have cost $78 million more to get the web site working, compared to just $4 to $6 million to simply join 14 other states on the federal exchange.” CBS News noted that “several other states, including Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Maryland, are all still trying to get their web sites to work properly as well.”
Jason Millman wrote in the Washington Post 
(4/26, Millman) “Wonkblog” that Cover Oregon officials are scheduled to meetMonday and Tuesday with CMS officials on the transition. The Post calls the decision “a disappointment” for Oregon and its Gov. John Kitzhaber (D), “who tried to position the state at the forefront” of the Affordable Care Act’s debut.
The Wall Street Journal (4/26, Dooren, Subscription Publication) reported that Oracle Corp., which built Oregon’s troubled site, said it would assist with the transition to the Federal website. A remaining issue is how to handle people who may need to switch between state-run Medicaid enrollment and the Federal exchange.
The Oregonian (4/26, Manning) reported that “Cover Oregon closed one of the sorrier chapters in the history of Oregon state government.” The state’s new chief information officer, Alex Pettit, told state officials that moving ahead with the state’s site presented both too much risk and cost. Oregon will still need to hire a systems integrator for the transition. The Oregonian notes that “Cover Oregon has spent about $181 million in its 33-month existence,” while “most of the federal grant money that has funded the operation has been spent.”
In its short report, USA Today (4/28, Kennedy) notes the move came “after months of website glitches and the move to paper enrollment forms.” In response, the paper notes, CMS spokesman Aaron Albright said, “We are working with Oregon to ensure that all Oregonians have access to quality, affordable health coverage in 2015.”
The Los Angeles Times (4/28, Ganga) reported that Pettit said after the vote that there “wasn’t anything wrong with the vision. … This was not a failure of policy. The failure was in the build.”
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