With just two weeks before the launch of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplaces, which will sell insurance to millions of Americans not covered at work and millions more not previously able to buy coverage, the federal computer software program is still miscalculating premiums, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal that broke just minutes ago.
The miscalculation problems, if not resolved by opening day Oct. 1, could affect health insurance consumers in the 36 states served by federally run marketplaces.
"There's a blanket acknowledgment that rates are being calculated incorrectly," one senior health-insurance executive who asked not to be named told the WSJ. "Our tech and operations people are very concerned about the problems they're seeing and the potential of them to stick around."
The software is being developed by government contractor CGI Group Inc. CGI has won more than $88 million in government contracts to build the exchanges through next March, the largest amount of any contractor, according to the newspaper's report.
Even if the marketplace computer system still malfunctions come Oct. 1, people can still enroll through agents and directly through insurance companies. One state, Oregon, has also announced it will not be fully compatible software-wise come opening day. California is still wobbling on its system's reliability.