For HIX Success, First Fix Government IT And Set Expectations

Health insurance exchanges should strive for several goals to prove their mettle and recover their public perception, according to the founding director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, an exchange that was once a national model and is now struggling to function.

The first lesson from the rollout of Healthcare.gov and state exchanges was “entirely unintended: implementation counts,” argues Jon Kingsdale, Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority executive director between 2006 and 2010, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The “flawed launch of the exchanges in most of the country will test the memory of voters and determine the electoral costs of having made it harder for Americans to buy (or keep) coverage,” warns Kingsdale, now a director at the Boston office of the Wakely Consulting Group.