1. “Original” Budget

The project - which goes back to the Chafee administration, which saw federal funding on the table for the technology for both boosting enrollment and tracking beneficiaries under Obamacare — was originally budgeted to cost between $110 and $135 million.  

UHIP officially launched in 2013 with the “ultimate” goal of saving Rhode Islanders “more than $90 million each year, including more than $40 million in state general revenue.”

2. Costs Tripled

The UHIP cost tripled to $364 million by 2015 — even before the hybrid portal was launched. And taxpayer groups weighed in. 

“With a similar net cost to Rhode Islanders as the 38 Studios debacle and the initial 38 Stadium proposal, the UHIP project is yet another example of government inefficiency and special interest spending, which will consume upwards of $77 million in state taxpayer dollars as well as hundreds of millions from federal taxpayers," wrote the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity in September 2015. 

3. Moving Targets

The project was supposed to replace the previous system - InRhodes - and be operational by April 2015. That got pushed back to July 2016, and the final launch dated ended up being September 13, 2016.  

A power point presentation from October 2015 shows the snapshot in time of project costs - and savings — one year ago.

4. Programs Served

The new single application is intended to coordinate across multiple health and human service programs including: Health Insurance, Medicaid Expansion & Traditional Medicaid; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Rhode Island Works (RIW); Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP); General Public Assistance (GPA); Medicare Premium Payments (MPP); and State Supplemental Payments (SSP).  See HERE

5. Additional Funding

The state is now looking for an additional $124 million from the federal government for Fiscal Year 2018.  

‘’This project continues to come in under the $364M that we have stated will be the cost for the first 5 years of the project. The request...to the federal government for authorization [is] for up to an additional $123.6M,” said Sophie O’Connell with the Rhode Island Office of Health and Human Services. 

"This request preserves the state’s ability to consider policy options for accessing an elevated level of federal matching funds in the future. These are not base project costs and this represents a request for authorization for federal funding which may or may not become part of an EOHHS budget request to the Governor and then the General Assembly for FY18. We expect to receive a response from the federal government on this request this fall," said O'Connell.

6. Tipping Point

The state projected the benefits to outweigh the costs starting in Fiscal Year 2018.  Prior to that, in the current fiscal year (2017), the state pegged the program cost to be near $400,000,000, with benefits to the state close to $300,000,000. 

Contrast that with FY19, when the state expects to have program costs slightly over $400,000,000, but with benefits valued at north of $500,000,000.

7. Rollout Review

Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, who faces Republican challenger Steve Frias in Cranston in November, will be reviewing the new system launch in the coming weeks, according to his spokesperson.

“[The Speaker] anticipates a briefing in the coming weeks on the results of the upgrade in addition to future needs,” said Mattiello spokesperson Larry Berman. “He wants to give them more time to make the implementation successful for Rhode Islanders.”

Mattiello had been critical when the cost-overruns came to light in 2015 (“Mattiello ‘concerned’ about RI’s $364M IT project,” wrote WPRI).

8. Deeper Dive

Staunch UHIP critic Mike Stenhouse with the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity is calling for additional oversight of the new 

"This has the possibility to be near criminal negligent waste and fraud of taxpayer dollars -- and the Center renews its call for an an inspector general and perhaps an independent investigation, now that its approaching a half billion," said Stenhouse. "Not only is the cost is in development dollars, it's dependency dollars. They claim this will ID waste and fraud -- but they can't possibly ID enough waste and fraud to pay for this."

9. Deloitte Factor

Program vendor Deloitte has come under fire in Kentucky for the rollout of their “one-stop shop for benefits,” called “benefind.”  

Deborah Yetter wrote for the Courier-Journal in July:

The launch of a new state public benefit system drew harsh criticism Thursday from lawmakers, with one calling for a state attorney general's examination of the contract with Deloitte Consulting, the company that built the $100-million system known as benefind.

"It seems like our most vulnerable populations are the ones who have paid for the shortcomings," Sen. Danny Carroll, a Paducah Republican, said of the system that caused massive disruptions in public benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps earlier this year. "Maybe that's something the attorney general should take a look at."

Carroll, co-chairman of the joint House-Senate Program Review and Investigations Committee, which held Thursday's hearing, suggested the attorney general could review whether Kentucky could recoup any of the funds it paid Deloitte and whether the contract offered sufficient protection to Kentucky in light of problems with the launch.

10. Next Session

With the upcoming general election in Rhode Island, the General Assembly could ultimately have a much different look, depending on who prevails.  

Watch to see the discussion and debate around the performance, funding request, and results to date with the introduction of the FY18 budget in the new year.