Analyses: Tracking the development path for Healthcare.gov; analyzing the evolution of the insurance system

The Wall Street Journal reports that a "lack of direction" may have been in play as the federal health exchange was being developed while CBS News offers a long look at how the health insurance system became what it is today.

The Wall Street Journal: Federal Health Site Stymied By Lack Of Direction
A team of young policy experts energized by President Barack Obama's health law toiled for three years in a Bethesda, Md., office building to draw up specifications for the federally run insurance marketplace. Forty miles away at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Baltimore headquarters, longtime agency computer experts with different bosses oversaw building the site's software and hardware components. And in Washington, White House advisers worked to preserve the law through treacherous politics, sometimes stalling final decisions about the site, HealthCare.gov, to avoid controversy ahead of the 2012 presidential election (Weaver and Radnofsky, 10/27).

CBS News: The Road To Obamacare: How Did We Get Here?
Fifty-five percent of Americans get health insurance through their employer. Many are surprised to learn that this system is not the result of some well-designed plan by policy experts who weighed its implications and selected it as the best option. Rather, it's an accident of history that has carried on into the 21st century (Tartakovsky, 10/25).