Consumers can expect glitches on Montana’s Affordable Care Act marketplace [The Montana Standard, Butte]

Sept. 28--HELENA -- When Montana's health insurance Internet marketplace opens for business Tuesday, consumers using it should expect some glitches in the complex project, health insurers say.

For starters, if consumers go on the marketplace and select a policy to buy, they won't be able to pay for it until at least November, insurers say.

"We know that there are going to be glitches," says Jerry Dworak, CEO of the Montana Health Co-op, one of three health insurers selling policies on the marketplace. "This is a massive, massive deal. ... We fully expect that there will be some issues."

The Marketplace is a key element of the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health-reform law known popularly as Obamacare.

Starting Tuesday, marketplaces are scheduled to open for business in every state, offering policies to individuals and, for many of them, federal subsidies to offset the cost of the

policies.

The marketplace is part of the law's effort to expand health coverage to the uninsured, as its individual mandate for having health coverage takes effect next year.

Montana's marketplace has been built by the federal government, which is employing multiple contractors to develop, test and help operate the huge electronic project.

The system must be able to communicate with government agencies and private insurers, as consumers choose which policy they may buy and enter personal information to see whether they qualify for subsidies.

On Thursday, the Obama administration said the marketplaces won't be ready on Tuesday to accept on-line applications from small businesses, which were supposed to be able to shop for policies for their employees. They may be ready by Nov. 1, the administration said.

The Wall Street Journal also has reported in the past week that potential problems have surfaced with the marketplace for individuals, as contractors work to debug the system.

In Montana, the three insurers offering policies on the exchange -- the Co-op, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, and PacificSource -- say they've been involved with ongoing testing of the system, including the sharing of "high-level files," and that most tests have gone well.

Still, they say it's likely some problems will surface as the project launches next Tuesday.

"I think in any major system like this, the first few weeks have bugs and fixes," says Todd Lovshin, Montana regional director for PacificSource. "Some of the things we've seen are positive and some of them we still have questions about."

The only specific problem mentioned so far is with payment for the policies. Consumers can shop on the marketplace when it opens next week and select a policy, but won't be able to pay until November.

However, insurers said they don't consider that glitch to be a major issue. The health-insurance policies for sale on the marketplace don't take effect until Jan. 1, and many shoppers probably won't make purchasing decisions until later this year anyway, they say.

Lovshin says state marketplaces built by the federal government, such as Montana's, appear to be in better shape than those built by individual states.

He also says the federal government, in building its marketplaces, has tended to narrow the scope of the project to ensure that what it's doing is working.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., did not respond to inquiries about potential problems with the Montana marketplace.

While glitches may occur, Dworak said he hopes people will still get on the marketplace and shop for health insurance -- and that he's optimistic it will work, even as problems are encountered.

"(Most) Montanans are going to save an awful lot of money going that route," he said. "You just have to be patient with it. HHS has invested an awful lot of political capital in it. We fully expect it to be wild ride."

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