WA State Healthcare Exchange Tells over 8,000 People “Whoops! We Goofed On Your Price!”

Thousands of residents who signed up at the state healthcare exchange found out the hard way they're going to pay a lot more for their healthcare.

The Seattle Times reports the Washington Healthcare Exchange,  known as Washington Healthcare Plan Finder,  miscalculated thousands of applicants information, and now must tell them they don't qualify for a tax credit!    From the Seattle Times article:

"For those few weeks, Healthplanfinder was submitting applicants’ monthly income to the federal hub, which compiles data from federal and state agencies to determine whether an applicant is eligible for Medicaid or for a premium subsidy to purchase a health plan through the exchange.

But the federal hub was expecting annual income, not monthly, which resulted in the miscalculation.

Approximately 8,000 Washington residents were affected, which meant they were told they qualified for a higher tax credit amount than they actually qualified for based on their income and household size."

When asked why this occurred,  exchange CEO Richard Onizuka said "We are still trying to figure out how this happened."

That's reassuring!    Washington state's healthcare exchange had been considered a "model" for the rest of the nation, largely because other than some minor issues,  the site has largely operated as planned.   There were some issues at the beginning of October, but since then the site has operated for the most part.   While it's overall performance has been given a "C" or "B-" grade by even supportive critics, that makes it look like an "A" compared to the disasters faced by the federal site and dozens of state sites across the country.