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The Cost of Adding Prices to HealthCare.gov

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, July 1 2010

Health insurances plan prices are scheduled to be added to HealthCare.gov in October 2010. If all goes well.

On a press call earlier this afternoon about launch of the Obama Administration's new HealthCare.gov, I asked HHS Chief Technology Officer Todd Park whether the country's major health care insurance companies are on board with releasing the specifics insurance plan prices that are slated to be added to the new site by October 2o1o, which is three months from now. With refreshing directness, Park responded, "We'll find out."

I'll say it before, and look, here, I'm saying it again! The open data part of open government is a threat to those interests who make a great deal of money off the public's confusion and the general absence of navigable information. (See, credit card industry) That makes getting data from those interests a political battle, whether it happens now or down the road a piece.

But a glimmer of hope: White House New Media Director Macon Phillips offered that the more the public takes to the new HealthCare.gov, the more incentive insurance providers will have to have themselves fully represented on the site.

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