There's money in them thar health exchanges

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Phil Mattera, Dirt Digger's Digest - After holding out as long as possible in the hope that Mitt Romney would be elected and the Affordable Care Act would be repealed, various red states are now being forced to decide whether they will set up the insurance exchanges mandated by the act or let the federal government do it for them. While this is a defeat for die-hard opponents of Obamacare, it is a windfall for a group of companies that regard the exchanges as a huge business opportunity.

Those companies are not just the private health insurance carriers, whose continued existence was guaranteed by Obamacare’s rejection of both single payer and the public option, and whose services will be hawked on the exchanges. It turns out that the creation of the exchanges, whether done under the auspices of a state or the feds, will involve private contractors.

Some of the states that have already opted to set up their own exchanges are doing so with the help of corporations that make a business out of government services. For example, California awarded a $359 million contract to consulting giant Accenture.  Xerox got a $72 million contract from Nevada, and Maximus was awarded $41 million by Minnesota.

Maximus is also reported to be among those companies competing for a federal contract that may be awarded to help the tardy states catch up. This would be in addition to several hundred million dollars in contracts already awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services to three contractors to help build the federal exchange.

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