Time to check in on the Healthcare.gov quagmire, where health department officials are facing 2.6 million "inconsistencies" — places where information submitted on an application failed to match government records — that were supposed to be resolved months ago. Income and citizenship status are causing the most problems, followed by employer-sponsored minimum coverage, Social Security number, non-employer sponsored minimum coverage, incarceration status, and Native American status. All these factors affect an applicant's eligibility for insurance and subsidies. The department expected some applicants would have problems with their applications, either due to errors or deliberate lies, and it budgeted 90 days to reconcile the data. That wasn't enough time, as it turned out. Technical issues delayed the verification process, according to a report released today by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General. Some marketplaces also failed to notify applicants that there were problems with their applications. By February 2014, only 11 percent of inconsistencies had been fixed.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
