HIX Woes, Redux

In what will surely be no surprise to regular readers, FoIB Gail S tips us to this news:

"Some consumers who got health coverage or subsidies through HealthCare.gov might not have been eligible to receive them"

Gee, ya think?!

The reality is that subsidies are based, in large part, in one's estimating a future year's family income. Here at IB, our Ouija board lacks a dollar sign ($). Adding insult to (financial) injury, the site itself (keyed to a handful of government agencies, each with their own protocols and tech) must collate all manner of disparate data in order to "vet" a prospective enrollee:

"Not all the internal controls were effective in determining if applicants were properly eligible for health insurance or subsidies .. It also found problems resolving inconsistencies between some applicants’ information and federal data."

No kidding.

Thank goodness all those problems are cleared up now.

Wait, what?

"HHS OIG says HealthCare.gov skipped group coverage access checks ... the HealthCare.gov exchange system still lacked a standard process for catching premium tax credit applicants who gave information about access to employer-sponsored coverage that was different from the story told by other data sources"

Wait, you mean people lied about their status?

Not necessarily: as complicated and arcane as this process is, it's entirely possible (likely?) that folks just didn't understand the criteria. And sure, some most likely did understand that they were pulling a Pelosi, but figured "what are the odds of getting caught?"

Given the ineptitude of the folks running this train wreck, probably a good bet.