Federal exchange spent $647 per enrollee -- a relative bargain

Meanwhile, Oregon names an official to oversee its shift to the federal exchange, while other stories examine the slow start of California's small business exchange and the higher costs faced by some Arizona families forced to switch their children from the Children's Health Insurance Program to private insurance when that state ended the program.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Report: Federal Exchange A Comparative Bargain
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 (Rovner, 5/8).

The Oregonian: Top Oregon Health Agency Manager, Tina Edlund, Will Head Health Insurance Exchange Transition
Acting Oregon Health Authority Director Tina Edlund has been tapped to head Cover Oregon's transition to using the federal health insurance exchange. Edlund had taken over the helm at OHA, the state's Medicaid agency, when then-director Bruce Goldberg moved over as interim head of Cover Oregon. Now she finds herself with the task of fixing the problem Goldberg and others couldn't: giving Oregonians access to a website allowing same-day self-enrollment (Budnick, 5/7).

Kaiser Health News: California's Small Business Health Insurance Exchange Off To Slow Start
California's insurance marketplace for small businesses has attracted just a fraction of eligible companies, with most being deterred by technology glitches, paperwork delays and customer service problems (Gorman, 5/8).

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Arizona Offers 'Sneak Peak' At Costs Of Shifting Kids Off CHIP
Families of Arizona children who were forced to switch from the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to private plans sold in the federal marketplace are likely paying more and getting fewer benefits, according to a study released Thursday. Millions of families who are ineligible for Medicaid could soon face the same choice if Congress chooses not to extend funding for the state-federal CHIP program when it expires in October 2015. Arizona was the first and only state to end its children's insurance program -; because its state legislature acted before the 2010 Affordable Care Act banned states from reducing children's health coverage (Galewitz, 5/7).