HealthCare.gov A Bargain Compared To State Exchanges

Sometimes there really are economies of scale. And the nation’s health insurance exchanges may be a case in point. As rocky as its rollout was, it cost the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, an average of $647 of federal tax dollars to sign up each enrollee, according to a new report.  It cost an average of $1,503 – well over twice as much – to sign up each person in the 15 exchanges run by individual states and Washington, D.C.

The report, released Wednesday, was compiled using data from federal enrollment figures and federal exchange funding for both the federal and state exchanges. It was written by Jay Angoff, a former Missouri Insurance Commissioner and one-time director of the Health and Human Services office in charge of implementing the health exchange program.

Even California, the most efficient of the state-run exchanges, at $758 per enrollee, still spent more than the average in the federal exchange. And California was the only state-run exchange with a per-person average under $1,000...