HONOLULU, Hawaii – Hawaii’s ObamaCare exchange, Hawaii Health Connector, has been under fire for being the most costly in the nation, and a new report from the Hawaii Commerce and Consumer Affairs Department shows the Connector won’t be fiscally sustainable until 2022.
That’s based on an enrollment of 70,000 to 80,000, said its director, Jeff Kissel. The Connector had about 1,000 people enrolled at this time last year. As of Thursday, that number had grown to 16,000.
On the job less than 90 days, Kissel told Watchdog.org he believes the department’s prediction is accurate and attainable.
However, Reg Baker, an accountant who previously served as chief financial officer for the Hawaii Medical Assurance Association, said finally becoming self-sustaining after over 10 years of design and implementation effort “is very disappointing.”
“If the plan was to receive state funding for 10 years then that should have been incorporated into the Connector’s business plan from the beginning and thoroughly discussed and approved by the state Legislature,” Baker said. “The funding source to keep the Connector operational should have been determined and secured a long time ago. This implies that they had other plans for funding operations that did not materialize for them — we all watched that unfold in the media.”
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