Report: Nevada Obamacare exchange considered dumping all its customers

Report: Nevada Obamacare exchange considered dumping all its customers

Nevada’s Obamacare exchange and its lead contractor Xerox allegedly discussed dumping sign-ups from its queue and starting over while dealing with serious website glitches, according to documents released Wednesday.

Matthew Callister, an attorney who has filed a class-action lawsuit against the exchange, released anonymous emails allegedly from a Nevada Health Link employee.

Callister took the opportunity to ask the author of the documents to come forward publicly, but in the meantime plans to use the emails as a guide for discovery during the lawsuit.

The documents allege that on November 8 and 9 last year, Xerox officials and former exchange director Jonathan Hager met regarding the website’s technical problems and discussing cancelling all applications from that time on and asking customers to sign up all over again.

The proposed cancellations would also affect customers who had already paid their first premiums, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.

By clearing out all enrollees, the exchange would have been able to rid itself of corrupted files that contained inaccurate information.

Nevada’s exchange has continued to struggle with serious website glitches throughout the first enrollment period. Customers have struggled with a system that sometimes fails to communicate new coverage to the insurer,  incorrect effective dates for insurance, and technical glitches on the consumer-facing side of the website as well.

One glitch kept multiple sets of records from being reconciled with Social Security numbers, according to Callister’s documents. Tax credits “were all miscalculated … and not enough money was paid on the premiums,” according to the letter.

Custmoer Larry Basich of Las Vegas, paid several months premiums for his health exchange insurance plan before suffering a heart attack and receiving $407,000 worth of care — only to have his bills denied by an insurer who was told the policy wouldn’t be effective until months later.

Basich is one of Callister’s original plaintiffs, and has been joined by over close to 60 exchange customers. After several months of negotiations the Health Plan of Nevada agreed to cover Basich’s bills, the Review Journal reports.

This report, by Sarah Hurtubise, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

LU Staff

LU Staff

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