From the office of Congressman Andy Harris:
Congressman Andy Harris (MD-01) commended the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General for releasing their report on the failed Maryland Health Exchange and uncovering that the state of Maryland intentionally misled the federal government in allocating funds to the exchange. Congressman Harris, along with then Congressman Jack Kingston (GA-01), requested this audit of the Maryland Health Exchange after the disastrous rollout. The audit found that the state had misled the federal government and misallocated $28.4 million in taxpayer dollars to the failed health exchange. The Inspector General is recommending to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that Maryland be forced to repay the money in total.
“We knew the launch of the website was a disaster, but now we know the O’Malley Administration misallocated federal funds. This audit was critically important, and I believe the state will have to return the appropriate amount of money to the federal government. This is just another example of Governor Hogan having to clean up Governor O’Malley’s mistakes,” said Congressman Harris.
It is possible the state may be able to lower the number from $28.4m because the money could be recouped from Medicaid. This audit did not look at other items related to the exchange but focused solely on whether the state followed federal guidelines. The audit looked at failures of the state as a whole, and does not assign specific blame to individuals.
So the audit doesn’t blame individuals but Andy Harris does?
And so did the voters. I am one of them. That’s one of the main reasons why Mr. Brown is not now our Governor.
I didn’t vote for Brown either. He was responsible for the bad roll out. Yet Mr. Harris blames Former Governor O’Malley!
Mr. Harris if free to blame whomever he wants. I blame both Brown and O’Malley.
I only saw that the State of Maryland cited in the article. Since when is a state an individual person? Typical Cdev!
Another Andy Harris witch hunt using taxpayer dollars.
Andy is this the most pressing business you can think of?
Brown championed “his” health care exchange where he essentially dumped 266 million in tax payers money down the toilet, and you think he should get a pass? I cant stand so many of you crazy right wingers, but for once Im glad someone is trying to hold some one accountable for this waste of MY money.
I saw the news reports too and a spokeswoman for the department involved stated that everything had been done properly. We will see as others look into the matter, but let’s not let an impartial and fair inquiry get in the way of Andy Harris’ efforts to smear everyone and anyone he can. The health care exchange was breaking new ground and the computer programs needed to be fixed so they worked correctly. I am sure many things could have been done better, but that will be determined by cool heads not nasty finger pointers.
But Andy’s temper was not held in check. This all goes to show that the Republicans are welcome to both Andy Harris and another doctor, Ben Carson. These physicians are both nut cases and are unfit to be president; at least we can thank Andy for not running for president. So far Ben Carson hasn’t come to his own senses even though he is a brain surgeon.
Tell me again who lost by a lot in a Harford County primary?
Before you “tell me how it is” I didn’t get any votes, and am too pathetic to run for public office.
The difference and reality is I know people won’t vote for me.
If you want to reply anything other than butt hurt, don’t bother, I’m only going to laugh at you more.
Please Christopher, just let people think you are nuts, don’t keep writing like this to prove it.
Who is asking anyone to vote for me? The difference is that Andy Harris is unable to say anything that is not nasty. Thank goodness he is not running for president. Ben Carson is. Why don’t you vote for him?
It’s hardly Harris alone on a witch hunt. Federal auditors have requested the funds be returned and it’s the only time in the history of the Obamacare fiasco that the Feds have bothered so it’s pretty obvious there’s something to it. Apparently Md used an old an inflated number when they asked for reimbursement. Deliberately? Maybe not but pretty damn sloppy if not deliberate. The money needs to be returned.
All we can do is wait and see what the investigations will turn up. All I said is that a spokeswoman for the state agency said the procedures were followed. Maybe she was using different procedures from what are now being applied. Or maybe people are looking at different sets of data. We don’t know, and unless YOU YOURSELF are conducting the audit you won’t have the decisive facts in front of you. That is why it is better to wait and see what comes of all this; but of course, like Andy Harris, if you want to make an ugly political statement out of it, by all means jump in and say the most inflammatory thing you can possibly think of.
Can you not read? The audit was already done – it was conducted by the feds and it was the feds (in otherwords friends of Obama) that said the money was inappropriately requested as reimbursement by the state based upon an inflated number of signups that were projections, not actual. Look it up as the scenario for what happened here is documented in great detail from multiple sources. The state of MD can whine all it wants about what they intended to do but what they did was inappropriate and now the money needs to be returned. I’m sure it’s already been spent as a windfall on some other wasted toilet flush of our tax dollars but regardless once again we that pay for this crap have been had by an irresponsible federal and state government.
“The health care exchange was breaking new ground and the computer programs needed to be fixed so they worked correctly.”
So in other words, keep spending (MORE) money until it was “fixed”?
I’m so thankful you lose political elections, and this isn’t even a Democrat versus Republican issue.
Sometime it’s hard to believe what I read.First 260 million thrown away now another 28 million lost and there are still dems and liberals who want to throw MORE money away. Thank you Congressman Harris for uncovering another case of mass government incompetence.
HYDESMANN,
I wouldn’t give a lot of credit to Congressman Harris for ‘uncovering’ this incompetence. He is right, of course, but the State of Maryland has so much incompetence (as does the Federal government) that you don’t really have to ‘uncover’ it. You sort of have to go out of your way not to trip over it. The amazing thing here is that Maryland pissed away a QUARTER of a BILLION DOLLARS and then decided to use the system already developed by another state. And Anthony Brown led the way along with Joshua Sharfstein. Oh yes, let’s not forget Josh who ran away and hid in the quasi-private sector at Hopkins. If he screws Hopkins up like he did Maryland the deserve what they bought.