Oregon Lawmakers Try To Avoid Another Cover Oregon Fiasco

– Northwest News Network as reported by OPB

March 4, 2014

The website for Oregon’s health insurance exchange still isn’t fully functional.

Oregon lawmakers say they want to avoid another high-profile tech blunder like the problems facing the state’s online health insurance exchange.

There’s an independent review of the beleaguered project under way, but Oregon lawmakers say they want to prevent future problems. The Oregon Senate approved a bill that aims to beef up oversight of IT projects. And the House passed a measure to extend whistleblower protections to Cover Oregon employees. It also expanded the governor’s power to remove Cover Oregon board members.

Democratic state representative Shemia Fagan said the legislation isn’t meant to be a cure-all for Cover Oregon. But, she added, “This bill does create tools so as soon as (we) know what happened and who caused it, swift action can be taken on behalf of Oregonians.”…

Our Response & Your Comments

Our question is, “Why did these geniuses allow this to happen in the first place?”

For nearly $200 Million Oregon built a system where:

No one person was in charge

Decision making was spread out

The many agencies involved didn’t communicate

It wasn’t tested front to back

People misled Oregonians. In late Sept. Cover Oregon managers assured everyone that the site would open Oct. 1.

These are very, very basic principles for doing anything in business.

We have one final question for Guv Kitz: “Did you haul senior execs into your office around Sept. 15 and do a dry run on Cover Oregon? If you did, you knew it wouldn’t work. If you didn’t, it says much about how you manage issues that are of vital importance to you.

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