The flagship legislation, known as Obamacare, contains a number of provisions that will require updates and expansions to several governmental IT networks at both the state and federal level. The largest boom of governmental IT expansion will likely stem from the state-based insurance exchanges that are mandated by the bill.
The Insurance Exchange is a relatively novel idea designed to offer a competitive marketplace to buy and sell health insurance which, according to proponents of the bill, ought to lower costs. These exchanges are intended to be run on the state level, but in any states where the exchange program is not ready by 2014, a comparable federal program is intended to step in and provide the service to residents until the state government is able to operate autonomously.
All of this organization will no doubt require a great deal of IT support in the form of telecommunications equipment, servers, networking and security. The IT industry may stand to gain as much from Obamacare as the healthcare industry for which it was designed. According to Josh Sharfstein, Maryland's Secretary of Health, "Even in a state as committed to reform as Maryland, setting up the exchange is no simple task. Much of the challenge arises from updating and revamping—and adding— to the state's information technology capacities. When exchange builders talk about IT, they aren't referring to the electronic health records you've been hearing about. This is a system to help people shop in the exchanges, figure out whether they belong in Medicaid, CHIP or the exchange and, if in the exchange, whether they qualify for federal subsidies—and how much."
Some states are already working feverishly to build their exchanges, while others are stonewalling the legislation with legal action. Still others are taking an approach by engaging in legal action against Obamacare, while still working towards compliance. Even the non-compliant states are generating IT business indirectly by creating demand for the federal exchange to grow and fill the gap that it leaves.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
