Is Maryland Taking Sides in this Year's Gubernatorial Election?

from HotAir

Of all the state health insurance exchanges which were rolled out in conjunction with Obamacare, Maryland’s was certainly in contention for the biggest disaster of the bunch. Warned for an entire year before launch of the impending disaster, the state plugged on forward anyway. The point person on the project was Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, who eventually abandoned the entire effort and firing the developer, Noridian Healthcare Solutions, in April of this year. It seemed that no amount of money or effort was going to bring the site back from the grave and they decided to start over from scratch with a new contractor.

It was also clear that the state would need to take legal action to recoup the many millions of dollars they had flushed into the site. Oddly, though, even with that much of the taxpayers’ money on the line, that action suddenly ceased this week.

Officials from Maryland’s health care exchange in April fired the contractor, Noridian Healthcare Solutions, and vowed to seek court actions to recoup the money.

Both sides have struck a temporary deal so state officials can focus on the second year of ObamaCare enrollment that starts Nov. 15, according to The Baltimore Sun.

A spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley told The Sun that officials are still “evaluating claims that we may pursue in litigation.”

If that date of November 15th sounds familiar, it’s the same day that you’ll be able to find out what your new Obamacare premiums will be. It’s also, by complete coincidence I’m sure, after the election. So why should Maryland care so much about that? The candidate for Governor is none other than the aforementioned Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.

I’m probably just being cynical here, but you don’t suppose he doesn’t want any headlines about the legal actions reminding everyone what a technical catastrophe his project was right before the election, do you? Naw… I’m probably being overly suspicious as usual.