The six competitors for a contract to build a health insurance exchange for Arkansas small businesses won't be named publicly until the contract is awarded late next month, officials with a state-created nonprofit entity said Wednesday.
The name of a seventh company that submitted questions about the contract but did not bid also won't be released until the contract is awarded, said Heather Haywood, a spokesman for the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace.
Haywood and Cheryl Smith, director of the marketplace, said releasing the names before then might cause one or more companies to withdraw their bids or discourage them from competing for other marketplace contracts.
For instance, Smith said, confidentiality might be important to some companies that are working in partnership with other companies on similar projects elsewhere but aren't teaming up to bid on the Arkansas contract.
"We want the full monty, as far as options for vendors here," Smith said.
Created by the state Legislature in 2013, the Health Insurance Marketplace is working to build insurance exchanges that would replace the ones set up for the state by the federal government.
Enrollment in Arkansas' planned small-business exchange is scheduled to start in October for coverage that would start in 2016.
For individual consumers, enrollment would begin in 2016 for coverage that would start in 2017.
Such exchanges, established under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, allow consumers to shop for coverage and apply for subsidies to help pay for it.
The Health Insurance Marketplace has requested up to $78 million in federal funding that would be paid to the companies responsible for setting up and operating the computer systems supporting the exchanges.
On Dec. 5, the marketplace began accepting proposals from companies for a contract to monitor the performance of the company selected to supply and operate the computer systems supporting the small-business exchange.
On Tuesday, it issued a request for information from companies on options for establishing the exchange for individual consumers.
The request for proposals for the contract to supply and operate the small-business exchange computer systems was released Nov. 10.
Six companies submitted responses by the Dec. 8 deadline.
All six submissions met the technical requirements of the request for proposals, passing the initial phase of the evaluation, David O'Donnell, a consultant with the Boston-based Public Consulting Group, said at a meeting Wednesday of the information technology committee of the Health Insurance Marketplace's board of directors.
According to a handout distributed at the meeting, the responses ranged in length from 150 to 900 pages.
Preliminary plans call for members of the evaluation team, which includes five board members, to narrow the companies to two finalists that will make presentations to the full board in late January. The board would then select the winning submission.
In the meantime, John Norman, the Health Insurance Marketplace's director of operations, said the bidder names would not be immediately disclosed so that the submissions can be discussed in public meetings without revealing company names.
The responses will be kept in sealed, unmarked containers in a locked storage area at the Health Insurance Marketplace's office, according to the handout. Board and staff members will have to sign a log when they remove or return one of the responses, and the log entry must be witnessed by two staff members.
Companies "will not be revealed to the public until absolutely necessary," with the finalists revealed when their representatives make presentations to the board, according to the handout.
Under Act 1500 of 2013, the Health Insurance Marketplace is not a state agency but is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
The Health Insurance Marketplace denied requests by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for records containing the names of the companies bidding on the small business exchange contract, citing an exemption under the state Freedom of Information Act protecting records that, "if disclosed would give advantage to competitors or bidders."
Camber Thompson, administrator of the state Department of Finance and Administration's Office of State Procurement, said in an email that the names of vendors responding to requests for proposals from state agencies are usually made public after responses are opened, "unless the requesting agency has valid concerns otherwise."
One company not competing for the small-business exchange contract is Dublin, Ireland-based Accenture, which built California's health insurance exchange and was hired to take over as lead contractor for the federal exchange after the botched rollout of the enrollment portal, healthcare.gov.
Kelli Williams, who attended the information technology committee meeting on behalf of Accenture, said the company is "evaluating what might be the best role for us to serve the state of Arkansas."
That could include monitoring the company hired to build the small-business exchange or building the exchange for individual consumers, Williams said.
She added that, judging from the meetings she's attended, members of the Health Marketplace Board appear to be "asking the right questions."
"There's been some missteps in other states," Williams said. "It seems that this group and the board are really taking their time to make sure they don't step in the same mud puddles."
Metro on 12/18/2014