SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Gov. John Kitzhaber says he was led to believe in the run-up to the troubled rollout of Oregon’s health insurance exchange that problems developing the website would not prevent it from launching on time.
Kitzhaber says he won’t know who misled him about the website’s progress until he hears back from a technology firm he’s hired to investigate.
Kitzhaber spoke Thursday at a legislative forum organized by The Associated Press.
The Cover Oregon website was supposed to launch in October but still can’t enroll anyone from start to finish. There are no estimates for when it will be working.
Kitzhaber says a backup system that requires workers to process applications by hand has successfully enrolled 80,000 people in private insurance and the publicly funded Oregon Health Plan.
